WILLIAM HENRY RAY 



A MEMORIAL 



lEetnoir 



WILLIAM HENRY RAY 



William Henry Ray 



a jWemorial 



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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

Srijc ©Intbersitg Press 
1891 



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NOTE. 

" I ^HE production of the present volume is due, first 
-^ of all, to Mr. Henry VV. Thurston, formerly an 
associate teacher with Mr. Ray in the Hyde Park 
High School, who prepared the Memoir which is the 
chief feature of the volume, and made the selections 
from Mr. Ray's writings ; to Mr. W. A. McAndrew, 
Mr. Ray's successor as Principal of the Hyde Park 
High School, and Mr. W. H. Hatch, of Moline, 
Illinois, who assumed the chief labor of securing sub- 
scriptions to guarantee the publication of the work ; 
and to Mr. Francis G. Browne, a former pupil of 
Mr. Ray in the Hyde Park High School, who assisted 
in the various details of preparing the matter for the 
press and overseeing the publication of the book. 
Acknowledgments are due Mrs. Ray for her coopera- 
tion in the examination of her husband's papers and 
in contributing material for the Memoir. 



PREFACE. 



" There are thoughts we cannot banish, 

There are deeds beyond control ; 

Men build for a day and they vanish, 

But leave us their strength and their soul." 

' I ^HAT the day of life among men allotted to 
^ William Henry Ray, who died July 30, 
1889, at the age of thirty-one years, was unusually 
short, the reader of this volume knows too well; 
but how grandly he used the day that was his, no 
one can ever know. He was a builder of manly 
and womanly character, and such structures do not 
obtrude themselves upon the eye. It is possible to 
see many foundations laid by him, and to the sympa- 
thetic observer are disclosed many noble characters, 
mature and strong, which he has helped to build. 
But of all the plans and designs for beautiful soul 
architecture bequeathed by him to others, in such 
way that they are sure to be wrought out in human 
lives, to be copied and recopied so long as human 
characters are formed, even the wisest and clearest 
sighted can know but little, can see but little. If 



X PREFACE. 

this volume shall help to make his personality and 
the purposes of his life any clearer to those who 
loved him, it will have an excuse for being; if it 
can help to strengthen those uplifting influences 
that he himself gave to the young men and the 
young women he loved, its ideal purpose will be 
fulfilled. 

H. W. T. 

La Grange, III., 

March, 1891. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

By Henry W. Thurston i 

APPENDIX {Selections from Mr. Rafs Writings). 

Russia in Asia 72 

The Teacher ^i 

The Public School and Citizenship .... 107 

George Rogers Clark 123 

Miscellaneous Extracts 150 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 



EARLY YEARS. 

WHEN the "minute-men" of 1775 hurried to 
the field to strike for the independence of 
the colonies, the great grandfather of William Henry- 
Ray enlisted from the town of Amherst, New Hamp- 
shire. His grandfather was one of the early settlers 
of Danville, Vermont, but lived afterward in Burke, 
Vermont, where Benjamin Franklin Ray. father of 
William Henry Ray, was born in 1824, From a 
journal entitled " Waymarks of my Life," begun by 
Benjamin Franklin Ray and kept by him until his 
son was twelve years old and then continued by the 
latter until near the completion of his college course, 
have been gathered many of the facts stated in this 
chapter. The story of the education of Benjamin 
Franklin Ray shall be told in his own words as 
they were set down in the Journal ^ : — 

1 This journal is a unique one. The part written by Mr. Ray's father 
is not strictly a journal, as it was all written at two separate times. 
When William was ten years old the thought evidently came one day 
to his father that the boy might be glad at some future time to know 
something of his ancestry and his own early years. Accordingly he 
sat down and wrote out a brief record of the Ray family, including a 



2 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

" His advantages were very limited. Until the age of 
seventeen years, he attended only a very poor district school, 
and most of the time not more than three months in the 
year, and had no instruction in the text-books of the school 
at home. 

" A few old volumes gave him some desire to read. He 
began early to be interested in lyceums, and was somewhat 
prominent among the boys of the town for debating powers. 
In February of his nineteenth year, after having been sixteen 
weeks in Lyndon Academy, and having taught school three 
winters, he went to St. Johnsbury with the purpose of attend- 
ing school at the Fairbanks Academy, which had just been 
opened under that excellent man J. K. Colby. My father 
was at this time but poorly clad, having for his sole moneyed 
reliance just twenty-five cents, for which he had sold a small 
volume ; besides, he had engaged to pay forty dollars for 
the remaining portion of his minority. By hard work and 
careful economy he pursued his studies about three years, 
teaching winters and working during vacations, on Saturdays, 
and whenever an hour could be spared from study without 
falling behind his classes. He paid his forty dollars, and 
was never in debt beyond a few dollars at any one time. 

" During much of the time he worked morning and even- 
ing for his board in the family of Dr. Morrill Stevens, brother 
of the since famous Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the lower 
House of Congress. In his twenty-third year my father, 

full account of his own life, and a few leading facts about his wife, 
William's mother, and also a sketch of the first ten years of William's 
life. Two years later he wrote the record of his son's life for those 
two years also, and then gave the record to William, who made all 
future entries. All that the father wrote about himself is in the third 
person, in the very words William would have used had he written 
the whole journal. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 3 

who had been engaged for several months in the study of 
law, became specially interested in religion. He endeavored 
to consecrate himself to Christ. So soon as he had united 
with the Congregational Church at St. Johnsbury, overtures 
were made to him of pecuniary assistance by Mr. Thaddeus 
Fairbanks, in case he would abandon the profession of the 
law and pursue a college and seminary course of education 
with a view to the ministry. He was pleased with the pros- 
pect of a liberal education, and felt that it was an indication 
of Providence which he ought to regard. He gave up the 
study of the law, and entered school anew. 

" He entered college, having never read a page of a Greek 
author before the college year began on which he entered. 
In consequence of a preparation so imperfect, he took a 
respectable but not a leading stand in the Dartmouth Class 
of 1 85 1. He, however, received a token of respect from his 
fellow-students in the gift of the highest office they could 
confer, namely, First Presidency of the United Fraternity. 

*' After teaching at St. Johnsbury for one year he entered 
the seminary at Andover, where he remained until near the 
close of his course, but was persuaded to lose his graduation 
with his class, to teach another year in Litchfield, Maine. 
Returning to Vermont in the winter of 1856 he was invited 
to become pastor of the church in Chelsea and also at 
Mclndoes Falls. He accepted the latter invitation. His 
ministry began there in March of that year. 

" About the same time my mother went to Mclndoes to 
teach music. She was then the widow of Mr. Cargill. My 
half-brother, Charles G. Cargill, was about ten years of age. 
My mother in her girlhood had attended school at Thetford 
and Montpelier, Vermont, acquiring a good education. She 
was for many years an accomplished teacher of music, both 



4 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

instrumental and vocal. An attachment grew up between 
her and my father, who were boarding at the same table, and 
they were married August 13, 1856. June i, 1858, William, 
the first born, came into the home of the young pastor and 
his wife.^ 

''I received baptism at the hands of a godly minister 
named Gurney, of Worcester County, Massachusetts. My 
parents consecrated me with the hope that I might be a 
missionary. In December, 1859, my father was invited to 
preach in Hartford, Vermont." 

The following letter, written by a friend of both 
father and son, explains itself and gives an interesting 
view of the father : — 

Chicago, January 20, 18S8. 
My dear Mr. Ray, — It seems unaccountable to me that 
in the time since I knew you it never occurred to me that 
your father must have been the Rev. Benjamin F. Ray, until 
this morning before I arose and while my mind was running 
over the events of last evening; then it flashed over me 
like a revelation. I cannot permit a day to pass without 
telling you that he was a teacher of mine in St. Johnsbury 
Academy, in 1853, when I was a lad of thirteen. How well 
I remember exactly how he looked in his high chair as I 
read to him, " Quousque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia 
nostra ! " In that particular class there were four of us, and 
I was the " Bantam." We used to think your father a trifle 
stern, and he was very dignified, so that he earned from the 
pupils the sobriquet of '' Judge." As I call to mind those 

1 The journal naively records the fact that the new-comer weighed 
eight pounds, and did not give much promise of future greatness. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 5 

days, it is a wonder to me that he was at all patient with the 
harum-scarum boys that came under his instruction. To 
my boyish mind he seemed much older than he really was, 
as he doubtless was then younger than his distinguished son 
is now. Pardon me that when you alluded to his being a 

classmate of Mr. , and also to the fact that your home 

was in Hartford, I did not at once recognize the relation- 
ship. It would have been a grateful pleasure to have borne 
my unqualified testimony to his worth, and to the increasing 
reverence I have for his memory as the chasm of years 
grows wider which separates me from the days of my boy- 
hood. . . . That I did not at once recognize your relation- 
ship is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that you do not in 
your physical make-up, nor in your manner, at all bring your 
father to my mind. . . . More than ever I count it a privi- 
lege to have known so favorably the son of B. F. Ray, and 
to know also the excellent work he is doing in the grandest 
of the professions next to that of his beloved father. 
Sincerely yours, 

E. D. Redington. 

Eleven years of the pastoral life of this man who 
seemed to the eyes of a schoolboy " stern " and 
worthy of the name of " Judge," were given to the 
people of Hartford, when he was obliged to leave 
them because of ill-health. He then went to New 
Ipswich, New Hampshire, where he died after two 
years, in 1872. His work among this people was 
seemingly in every way helpful and inspiring; his 
portrait still hangs upon the walls of many a home 
in Hartford, and even the children of his old parish- 
ioners still speak his name with reverence. 



6 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

One who was in the church at Hartford for six 
years, and whose wife was in his church and family 
at New Ipswich, says of him : " He was a royal man, 
calm, self-poised, taking his positions carefully and 
then holding them. He was a general in his church, 
giving every person his work and leading the whole 
column grandly on. It was not go, but cojne" Of 
Mr. Ray's mother the same friend continues : " She 
was bright, vivacious, and very nervous, brilliant in 
conversation, nearly always an invalid." 

From these descriptions those who knew Mr. Ray 
personally cannot fail to see that he united in him- 
self the strongest characteristics of both parents. In 
the terse words of the friend quoted above: "Ray 
took his method and strength from his father, his 
quickness and nervousness from his mother." 

With reference to the early education of the young 
William, the Journal continues : — 

" Being of delicate health my parents did not desire me 
to begin to read young. They took much pains, however, 
to teach me the right use of language, and many such facts 
as could be gained by observation. It was not until I was 
past five years of age that I began to attend regularly to 
reading. In September of 1863, Miss Fannie Chapman 
began to teach me. I had before learned my letters from 
blocks, and read a little for my amusement in the Primer, but 
soon tired of it and gave it up. I made good progress from 
the time Miss Chapman began to teach me, and the next 
spring my father bought a Bible for me, which was given me 
as a birthday present when six years old. February 28, 1865, 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 7 

I had been to private teachers four terms, — to Miss Chap- 
man two ; to Miss Brooks and Miss Mary Morris one each." 

When he was seven years old he went to Boston 
with his father, who took pains to show him places of 
public and historic interest. He had previously been 
with his father to Burlington, Vermont, and to sev- 
eral other places which the father visited in his min- 
isterial capacity. During all of these little journeys 
the father seems to have taken the utmost pains to 
cultivate the powers of observation of his son, and to 
explain to him the history of all places worthy of 
mention. 

** In March, 1866, my father wrote regarding my studies : 
* This day Willie began to write with a pen, — that is, to learn 
to write. Since the four terms mentioned above he has 
been under Miss Morris perhaps sixteen weeks, studying at 
home some during intervals. He is pretty thoroughly ac- 
quainted with Primary Geography, has been two-thirds of the 
way through Colburn's, is taking the Fourth Progressive 
Reader, having read nearly through Wilson's Fourth. He 
spells well. His journeys have done him good.'" 

The generous, lovable traits of his character, and 
the sweetness of his babyhood and early boyhood 
days, are thus described by his half-brother, Mr. 
Charles C. Cargill, in a letter to Mrs. Ray just after 
her husband's death, as the thronging memories of 
past days came over him : — 

" I loved him dearly. He was my pet brother. When 
he was a little fellow, — only a baby, and until he was two or 



8 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HEYR V RA V. 

three years old, — he was my care. Mother had much to do, 
and turned Will over to me, and I took nearly all the care 
of him, — bathing, dressing, and doing all for him. He was 
a dear little fellow, too, always good and loving. As we 
grew older we grew dearer to each other. I think of many 
incidents of our boyhood that were sweet because of his love 
and goodness. He was always good and noble, always 
making the most of himself and doing well whatever he had 
to do, and always endearing himself to others by his lovable 
character." 

Mr. Ray's Journal continues: — 

In June, 1866, I attempted for the first time to attend 
public school, but was unwell and remained only two weeks. 
Received a little instruction until the winter term, attended 
through the term the district school, and went in the summer 
to Miss Downing. In the autumn of 1867, I began to study 
regularly, reciting to my father. I had for a companion 
Charles Cone. We studied together " Science of Common 
Things," which we enjoyed very much, completing and re- 
viewing the book in less than two terms. We also reviewed 
Colburn's Arithmetic, studied Greenleafs Intellectual, and 
about mid-winter began Written Arithmetic. After a few 
weeks in the latter, my parents intended a removal to 
Lyme, so that a long vacation succeeded although the re- 
moval did not occur. In the summer the study was re- 
newed. Arithmetic and grammar with spelling were our 
studies. We went through and reviewed the little book 
called Tower's " Elements of English Grammar " in about 
twelve weeks. I have had considerable fondness for reading 
for two or three years, but my father thinks at ten years of 
age I ought to have a more instructive class of books. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 9 

Most that I have read have been moral stories, such as we 
find in the Sabbath School library. I have, however, read 
some short biographies, — such as the life of Washington, 
Franklin, and Lafayette. I was considerably interested in 
Scott's " Lady of the Lake," read in the family. When 
nearly ten years of age I undertook Irving's " Columbus," but 
having considerable studying to do I did not finish the sec- 
ond volume until later. About this time I read the " Hero- 
ism of Boyhood," opening the early Hfe of several dis- 
tinguished characters, and enjoyed it much. The " Little 
Corporal " was my favorite. ... I sometimes thought my 
father urged me to study when I ought to play; but he 
thought I should live to bless his memory for the hard work 
he was willing to do to aid me to a course of education. 

This is where I stand at ten years old. God alone knows 
the future. May His good hand be over me, and His Spirit 
guide me to do well the work of life ! 

William Henry Ray 

(By his father). 
Hartford, Vt., June I, 1868. 

Two years later the father again took up the story 
of his son's life, and having completed it for these 
two years also, gave the book to the boy, no doubt 
with much fatherly advice and instruction. Mention 
is made of many short trips with his father and of 
visits to his relatives. He also describes a visit to 
Hanover, New Hampshire, during the celebration of 
the Centennial of Dartmouth College, in 1869. The 
boy remarked that he was " much interested in the 
speaking of the students, and thought the Class of 



lO MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

1869 would always be proud to belong to the cen- 
tennial year." 

When he was ten years old he began the study of 
Latin with his father. 

" He set me to the study of Latin, using Harkness' * First 
Lessons.' We also had algebra. I enjoyed the Latin quite 
well. Father thought we got on quite well. Charles Cone 
and Emma Pease were my classmates- We went entirely 
through with the ' Lessons ' in one term. We did not like 
algebra and of course did not succeed in it." 

To those who knew Mr. Ray in his manhood it is 
needless to say that this early love for Latin con- 
tinued unabated, and that his dislike for algebra did 
not hinder him from gaining a thorough mastery of 
the subject later on. 

Toward spring [when William was eleven years old] my 
father's health failed. He was obliged to give up preaching. 
His physicians thought his life could not be very long. It 
was dark looking toward the future. How should we live? 
How would Herbert [a young brother] and I find means for 
our education ? Such questions were forced on our minds, 
but no answer could be given. To diminish the expenses 
of living, Herbert was sent to Lancaster [his uncle and aunt 
Stephenson had kindly offered to keep him for a few months], 
and I went to Mr. Charles Hazen's to work for my board. 

During the summer my father's health improved to some 
extent. He thought he must try to preach again to earn 
subsistence for his family. He had a great desire to obtain 
a situation for a year where there was a good school which 
I might attend. Such an opportunity offered. He was 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. II 

invited to New Ipswich, New Hampshire, where is the Apple- 
ton Academy, as good situation in respect to school as he 
could hope. Because of the school, and because of his invalid 
condition, he accepted the offer of the society to employ 
him for one year, on the small salary of eight hundred dollars 
and rent of parsonage. About the 20th of July, 1870, we 
moved to that place. 

At the beginning of the term, a month after we came to 
New Ipswich, a new life began with me. Instead of a little 
class in my father's study, I must take my chance with a 
large number, mostly older and braver than I. [Remember 
that these are the words of the father. It is hard for those 
who knew the man to believe any of the boys could have 
been at heart braver than the little boy William.] In vaca- 
tion I had read a few pages of Caesar. ... In school I 
began Sallust, which was quite difficult for me, especially as 
I was engaged in the recitation-room four hours. Besides 
Latin, philosophy, reading, spelling, and arithmetic were 
my studies. Then there were declamations, essays, and 
compositions to employ the spare moments. Base-ball was 
a chief recreation. 

Almost two and a half years have passed since the first 
date in this Journal. It has sped quickly away. A few 
more such periods, and if I live, my opportunities for educa- 
tion will be passed. Am I filling up these months as I shall 
wish I had done when plunged into the active duties of 
manhood ? 

WiLMAM H. Ray 

(By his father). 
October 29, 1870. 

How the father's heart would have filled with joy- 
could he have seen how well his son met the active 



12 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

duties of life as they thronged upon him ! And if 
those who have died to their friends still have the 
power to see those whom they have left, surely must 
there have been joy in the heart of one father as the 
years of his son's young manhood passed in rich 
fruition of that father's hopes and prayers. 

The imagination easily pictures these first twelve 
years of the ardent young life of Mr. Ray. A father 
who had known much struggle, and who foresaw that 
a hard future was before his boy, would make use of 
every means possible to develop his mind and fortify 
his nature against the inevitable hardships of the 
future. Thus, because of the father's far-seeing and 
sometimes stern love for his boy, it often happened 
that William was kept at his books when his whole 
boyish, exuberant nature would have preferred to be 
at play. Perhaps the father was wiser than even he 
himself knew ; for he was dealing with a nature whose 
enthusiasm was not easily checked, and might have 
run into channels that would have scattered it, or have 
applied it to unworthy ends. From his mother must 
have come the influences that made him so gentle 
and thoughtful of others. From his earliest years she 
was not strong, and the sensitive boy learned to con- 
trol his noise lest it hurt the mother's aching head. 
When his mother had to be left in quiet, the books 
in his father's study gave a chance for his activity to 
expend itself. His journeys with his father had made 
him keenly observant of men and things; his studies 
with private teachers had made him a careful, self- 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENR Y RA V. 



13 



reliant student; and his home-life had made him 
earnest, thoughtful, and tender beyond his years. 
Thus at twelve years of age, having previously been 
but a little more than two terms in a public school, 
William Henry Ray entered Appleton Academy to 
begin in earnest to prepare himself for college. 



SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE. 

'T~^HE story of Mr. Ray's life in the academy and 
-^ at college was given in a paper before the Illi- 
nois State Teachers' Association held in Springfield, 
IlUnois, in December, 1889. The author of this 
sketch, from which extracts will be taken, is Profes- 
sor Herbert J. Barton, of Illinois State University, 
who was in college with Mr. Ray and knew him 
intimately ever after. Professor Barton says : — 

" Of these years at the academy, one writes : ' Ray was 
quite a favorite at school, not only because he was small and 
the rest took a fatherly interest in him, but because he was 
free from hateful ways, was bright, jolly, and friendly.' How 
well these words describe his later life among us. 

" On the death of his father, the mother moved to Nor- 
wich, Vermont, for the advantages of the academy situated 
there, and also for its proximity to Dartmouth College. He 
graduated from Norwich Academy in the spring of 1873, and 
entered college in the fall of the same year. At college I 
first met Mr. Ray. He was young in looks and young in 
years for a college boy, but he was the Ray of a year ago, 
making allowance for the years that have flown between. 
Bright, cheerful, and vivacious, so we thought then, and is 
not this the report that all of us who knew him in his 
adopted State can give? 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY, 1 5 

" Ray dropped back a year in college and graduated in 
1878. He did this from financial needs. He taught 
considerably during his college course, and nearly paid 
his way by this means. Of Ray's first school I know 
nothing. His second was in one of the back districts 
of Hanover, New Hampshire, where two teachers had 
been turned out by the scholars, — a Hoosier Schoolmaster 
kind of district, — but they did not turn Ray out. This 
is what the committee said of the school : ' The term was 
finished by W. H. Ray, a wide-awake and live teacher 
who, improving with years and experience, will make a 
teacher such as we are in so much need of at the present 
time.' 

" During Ray's junior year in college he rented Norwich 
Academy from the trustees, engaged an assistant, and taking 
in the very boys with whom he had played, made a grand 
success of the work. That same assistant writes me from 
Plymouth Rock, and his words describe well the Ray of those 
days. He says, 'Those days of work together in that old 
school building, how they linger in memory ! How we two 
frisky boys put all our friskiness into school work and yet 
withal did some sohd instruction, or at least Ray did. The 
most striking personal trait of Ray in those days, he con- 
tinues, 'was his unHmited enthusiasm. His love of sport 
and fun and hilarity of every kind was inextinguishable. 
Small in size and boyish in appearance, he would romp with 
the boys on the foot-ball ground, then throw himself with 
sweaty brow and dishevelled hair into his instructor's chair, 
and hold, by his innate skill as a teacher, those same boys 
who a few moments before had been rolling him around on 
the ground in their mutual pursuit of the bounding rubber 
sphere.' When he took the school, nearly every one said 



I 6 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

he would make a ridiculous failure of it, but they all rejoiced 
to find that they were mistaken. 

" Ray's rank in college was good, yet I think his aim was 
rather to stand fairly well than to try to lead his classes. He 
was a man who read largely, but it was in no particular line. 
General culture was his aim then, as indeed it always was. 
He was seeking the rounded man." 

Some extracts from the Journal, kept henceforth 
by the boy himself, will serve to show his develop- 
ment and throw light upon his life from the inside. 
The first of these extracts are taken from the entries 
made soon after it was given to him, when he felt as 
if he must write something every day. Let no one 
expect maturity in a boy of twelve. 

October 31, 1870. 

It has been quite wet to-day, for last night there was 
quite a snow-fall, and this morning it rained and so made a 
slosh. There has nothing happened to-day that I can think 
of, so I don't know anything to write about. 

November 6, 1870. 

We have not got along so far in Sallust as we ought to, 
and if we get through without any review we shall have to 
work very hard. Yesterday did not seem a bit like Saturday 
for I had to work most all day. 

An estimate of Josh Billings is brief and to the 

point. Perhaps the spelling of the humorist was 

contagious. 

November 16, 1870. 

Last night I heard the famous Henry B. Shaw, better 

known as Josh BilHngs, of New York. The lecture was quite 

funny though not very litter ary. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. I 7 

The following extract gives an account of his first 
examination in a public school and another specimen 
of literary criticism : — . , . „ 

November 26, 1870. 
Tuesday school closed and there was a public exhibition. 
I got of first rate in the examination, for I did not miss a 
single thing that was put to me. ... I am now reading 
Ivanhoe, one of the best novels of Sir Walter Scott. I like 
it very much indeed, and it is my first reading of Scott's. It 
is got up in an interesting style, though I can't say anything 
about it. It is in a story telling style, though there is con- 
siderable knowledge in it. 

Few American boys of twelve have ground for an 
opinion of their own about Virgil: — 

December 7, 1870. 
I do not know what to write about or I should have writ- 
ten before. School commenced to-day, and I have begun to 
study Virgil. I think I shall like it, though it is awful hard. 

During the winter he made but few entries in the 
Journal. Nor did he attend the academy for any 
study except Virgil. The rest of his time was evi- 
dently spent in the study of some subjects in which 
he was deficient, under the care of a private teacher, 
one of the young ladies of the academy. 

Of his Christian life and boyish quarrels with his 
younger brother he writes thus : — 

April 28, 1871. 
Oh, dear, somehow, I don't know how it is, I cannot keep 
out of trouble with Herbert ! I pray every day to God to 
help me, and for an hour or two it is all right, and then it is 
as bad as ever. I try to be a Christian boy, but somehow I 
am almost afraid I am not. 



1 8 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

After school closed he went to spend the summer 
with relatives in Peacham, Vermont, and in Lancaster, 
New Hampshire, and during the most of the time he 
seemed to be having too good a time to record the 
fact in his Journal. 

December lo, 187 1. 

It is a long while since I have written in my Journal, and 
I feel almost ashamed to say it. After I came home from 
Lancaster I soon commenced school again, and had to study 
pretty hard to keep up with my class. I took Livy, com- 
menced Greek and English Grammar. During the winter I 
joined the Fraternity, a society of the boys for the purpose 
of debating and literary improvement. I find this very in- 
teresting and in some degree improving. I take part some- 
times. 

The winter vacation he spent in Boston, and writes 
an enthusiastic account of his visit to Harvard Col- 
lege and the historic buildings of the city. But how- 
ever light-hearted, thoughtless, and gay he may have 
seemed to his companions during these days, he was 
at heart serious and earnest. The endless quarrel 
between what he would do and what he did was giv- 
ing him many anxious hours, and the poor health of 
both his parents was always on his mind. 

On the last night of the year 1871, he wrote: — 

Now the old year has drawn to its close, and to-morrow 
is the commencement of the new year. . . . Oh, may I do 
better in future, may I be more watchful and prayerful and 
zealous in the cause of Christ ! During the past year I have 
done well in my studies, studied hard, tried to take a good 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 1 9 

Stand and to please my dear father, and have, I hope, im- 
proved myself by composition and discussion and by, in the 
main, dropping story reading [story reading seemed to be 
associated in his mind witli frivolity and wickedness, a view 
reached no doubt by his father's objection to most of the 
Sunday-school books which were offered to the young peo- 
ple of his churches], and as I look forward to the future, 
what is before me? Father is worse, although I hope he 
will pick up again. Mother is dejected and nervous as ner- 
vousness Itself, although I mean to do what I can to cheer 
her up. Father says he cannot afford to send me to school 
much longer, but next spring I mean to take care of the 
academy, and father has found a place for me to work next 
summer, and then I mean to earn enough to pay my tuition 
and clothes, and by another year I shall be large enough to 
take care of myself and relieve father of my expense." 

Before another entry in the Journal is made his 
father died, and the slight boy of thirteen years 
bravely faces the future. As the eldest son, the care 
of his mother was to devolve upon him, and he prays 
for strength to help her. There was more before 
him than he knew on the last night of the old year. 

January 28, 1872. 
Since I last wrote my dear father has passed from this 
earth, and I am left without a father in the world. In some 
measure the responsibilities of the family now come upon 
me. I am old enough to do something toward the support 
of the family, or at least toward my own support. I m.ust, in 
great measure, be the only one for my dear mother to lean 
upon, and it is my daily prayer that I may be kind and obe- 



20 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

dient to my mother and be a good example to my brother. 
Father died on Sunday, the 7th of January, at ten minutes of 
eleven, just as the bell ceased tolling for church. 
Now I have no father, no father ! 

Soon after his father's death he went into school 
again, and an entry is made with no date that 
says : — 

" As to study, I am having all I can do and rather more 
perhaps than is good for me ; but then I guess I can tough it 
through. Yesterday I wrote all day and wrote till midnight." 

The work of life was upon him like a deluge, and 
from the midst of it all rings out his sturdy cry, " I 
guess I can tough it through." Henceforth there 
was no pause in the struggle, hardly even for breath, 
but upon one thing after another he was always at 
work with a brave heart and a bright face, " toughing 
it through." 

No further record is made until August 7, 1876, 
when the whole period between this date and the 
time of the last entry in New Ipswich is sketched in. 
After spending the summer in Lancaster, he and his 
mother moved to Norwich in August, 1872, where 
he soon entered the academy under Charles E. 
Putney, afterwards principal of St. Johnsbury Acad- 
emy, and with a class of eight others finished the 
course. In his own words : — 

" Not expecting to enter college in the fall, I left school 
three weeks before the close of school and took a district 
school for the summer, at the wages of ^2.30 a week and 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 21 

board. I was present, however, at our graduation, and de- 
livered an oration on the Latin sentence, ' O auri sacra fames, 
quid non mortalia pectora cogis ! ' I got through my first 
attempt at teaching with a good degree of success, a^id was 
offered a good position for the fall ; but by some strange 
workings of circumstances I decided, about the middle of Sep- 
tember, to enter college, which I did at old Dartmouth." 

This school in Norwich, then, was his first school 
about which Professor Barton said he knew nothing. 
Here was the humble beginning that, in the few years 
before his death, led to such a commanding position 
as a teacher. 

" My second year in college I partially wasted, contracted 
some bad habits, and stood low in my class. By the grace 
of God and by the gentle influence of one of whom I will 
speak soon, I have broken my bad habits, and for a year 
have taken a good stand as a reliable man and a Christian." 

Surely from this time on, the "grace of God and 
the gentle influence " of one human life never left 
him, and he always felt that he owed much of what 
was best in him to their help. 

During the summer between his freshman and 
sophomore years he worked on a farm, and during 
the winter of the sophomore year he taught the 
term of school in the unruly district mentioned by 
Mr. Barton. The next summer was spent in the 
store of L. B. Downing in Hanover, who knew his 
father and mother well, and says of him : " He was 
in our family much while in college, in my store part 



2 2 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

of the vacation, and seemed very near to us. We 
used to scold him about his overwork, and he would 
promise to do better, but never did." The Journal 
says : — 

" Junior winter, although my mother was sick, I accepted 
a school of forty or forty-five scholars in Rindge, New Hamp- 
shire, receiving as compensation $182 for thirteen weeks. It 
was a hard school, and quite noted as an unruly and turbulent 
one. I got through without using much physical force, and 
my manner of instruction and discipline were highly com- 
mended at the end of the term. I think, however, that I 
did not deserve nearly all the credit I got." 

The next year was spent in the academy at Nor- 
wich, as has been told before. Of his work here, 
Mr. Ray himself says : — 

" My school here was in some respects a success, in 
others, not. The first term I had thirty-two scholars and 
went along pleasantly enough. I taught six hours and 
kept very busy over the studying I had to do to teach 
well. At the close of school we gave an exhibition which 
was in every way a grand success. We were complimented 
and praised to the greatest extent possible. Professors 
Quimby and Young, of Dartmouth, Dr. Leeds, and others, ex- 
pressed themselves very much more than satisfied. . . . The 
Trustees urged me to stay another term, and I did so. . . . 
The school went on fairly well with twenty-seven scholars ; 
but I was over-worked and was probably cross, and there 
was more or less friction. I was glad to get through. Fi- 
nancially it was not much of a success ; but I would not take 
back the year now if I could. I have grown from a boy to 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 23 

a man. I have gained the good will and respect of the best 
class of people, and feel now that I am qualified to take any 
kind of a school and do well with it." 

And this feeling on the part of the young man of 
nineteen was not based on a vain opinion of himself, 
but rather on the hardest kind of experience and the 
truest self-respect. Since he was graduated from the 
same school only four years before, he had done 
three full years of work in Dartmouth College, taught 
three terms of district school, the second and third of 
which were in districts requiring unusual skill, and 
conducted Norwich Academy, which prepared stu- 
dents for Dartmouth College and was continually 
under the eye of its Faculty, to their satisfaction. 
Well might he say in view of such record that he had 
now become a man. Well might he feel confident of 
his power to teach and control a school. " Tribula- 
tion worketh patience ; and patience experience ; and 
experience hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed." 
A hope based upon such a sequence was the hope of 
William Henry Ray at this time. 

In the fall of 1877 he again went to Dartmouth for 
his senior year's work, which he took up with all the 
earnestness of his ardent nature, directed by his past 
experience as a teacher, and inspired with love for 
the strong yet quiet woman. Miss Martha Hutchinson, 
to whom he had been engaged since July 22, 1876. 

While attending college in Hanover, he still lived 
with his mother in Norwich, and walked to and from 
college, a distance of one mile daily. During much 



24 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

of the time also his mother's health was completely 
broken, and his care of her was touching. One who 
was near to them both writes thus of his thoughtful- 
ness for her: "His care of his invahd mother after 
his father's death was most tender, sleeping on a 
couch by her bed during several years, and soothing 
her overwrought nerves as a mother would soothe 
her child." What a contrast to the hilarious, romp- 
ing boy of the campus ! How completely did all 
those, through his whole life, fail to know him, who 
knew only the surface of his nature, the forceful, 
enthusiastic, combative manner of the man ! Almost 
from the cradle, as has been shown, was he at heart 
unselfish and thoughtful of others. 

Of his college life, as seen from the standpoint of 
the Faculty, a beloved professor writes : — 

" Mr. Ray entered college young, too young, and there 
was nothing, I should say, very marked in the first two years 
of his college course. He then stayed out of college for a 
year, successfully engaged in teaching. On his return to 
college, he at once showed himself the man he was to be, 
and the remainder of his college course was marked by the 
faithfulness and diligence of the devoted student." 

It is not strange that the professor above quoted 
should confound some one of the individual terms of 
school which Mr. Ray taught with his year in the 
academy, which really occurred, as we have seen, 
after he had been in college three years. That a 
change took place in him in his third year has been 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 25 

told US by his Journal, and that this change was 
genuine and lasting the testimony of his professor 
proves, for he concludes thus : — 

" We all here who knew Mr. Ray, have the same feelings 
with you at the West who knew him there. His removal is 
one of the mysteries, and seems an irreparable loss. Only 
this, I think, we may be sure of, his character, his character- 
istics, and example will be brought out, spoken of, and 
pondered upon much more, and much more influentially, by 
their consummation in this early death. * He being dead 
yet speaketh,' and the echo is more interesting and effective 
than that which caused it ! " 

A hint of vi^hat was going on in Mr. Ray's own 
mind during his last months in college and a revela- 
tion of the earnest, spiritual nature of the man are 
given in his Journal for the months of May and June, 
1878, since which time he seems not to have kept a 
journal. In the entry of May 4, 1878, occurs this 
statement with reference to his work in college during 
the year : — 

"Yesterday, owing to carelessness, I made almost the 
only poor recitation this year. Had not looked at my 
lesson and ought to have expected restitution for it." 

Again for Saturday of the same week : — 

" Staid at Hanover till two o'clock and did nothing. I 
am getting lazy and must try to do more work." 

How vainly does the imagination of those who 
knew him strive to picture the young man as truly 



26 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

lazy ! It can safely be allowed each reader to fill 
the hour or two of time between the close of Mr. 
Ray's college work on that day and the hour of two 
when he went home. Activity, productive or effec- 
tive, there surely was. 

The entry of Monday, May 6, is in spirit the prayer 
of his life : — 

" Yesterday was the Lord's Supper celebrated in our 
church. It seems to me that there must be a radical defect 
in my make-up that I do not have more eagerness and 
earnestness in the Master's work, more love for Him, and a 
readiness to do His bidding. O Lord, help me to think 
less of myself, less of my own way, to be more prayerful, 
more loving to those dear ones who love me and do so much 
for me ! Forgive I pray, the evil thoughts, the vain imagina- 
tions, and the wrong acts ! Make me to see myself as I am, 
and to lean on the Lord's arm ! " 

About this time also, a correspondence sprung up 
between him and the Trustees of McCuUom Institute 
in Mt. Vernon, New Hampshire, with reference to 
the principalship. 

Almost the last entry in the Journal is with refer- 
ence to this school, and henceforth there was no 
need that he leave a record upon paper, for his life 
work was written in human lives which he helped to 
make intelligent and noble. 

" This morning after I finished the letter to Martha, and 
went to Hanover, I found a letter from Deacon Conant, say- 
ing that I had better go to Mt. Vernon and see them and 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 27 

let them see me ; so I am going in the morning and hope I 
can please them. I think I can run the school successfully 
and well. I would at least try to do the best I could. I 
take for my motto, ' Als ikh kahn,' the same that old Johann 
Van Eyck used to put on all his paintings." 

At this time he was not quite twenty years of age 
and extremely youthful in appearance. It was not 
strange, therefore, that when he appeared before the 
Trustees at Mt. Vernon, one of them should ask him 
how old he was. His answer was characteristic, 
" Old enough to teach this school, sir." And he got 
the school. 



MR. RAY'S WORK AS A TEACHER, 



WITH ESTIMATES OF HIS WORTH AND CHARACTER. 



w 



ITH reference to Mr. Ray's work in Mt. 
Vernon, Mr. Barton says : — 



" He made a great success of it. Up to this time he had 
thought of the law as a life work. At Mt. Vernon he chose 
the teacher's profession. Here he was also town superin- 
tendent, and did his first work in school supervision. His 
equipment was as extensive as possible. Nearly all the 
money saved in those early days was spent in books. As a 
student he was most diligent. Many a morning the sun 
came streaming in at the windows before he sought rest, and 
he never left his work before midnight. 

He also was a leader in Christian work in those days as 
afterwards with us. During most of his stay at Mt. Vernon, 
he conducted religious services at the school-house out of 
the village. One writes, * He never was too busy to talk 
with pupils on any subject, trivial or serious, and many a 
boy and girl left his desk with a lighter heart and a nobler 
purpose because of the earnest, sympathetic words given.' 
This school was very near to Ray's heart. He once told 
me he never expected to see another like it, and I judge its 
charm was in the sympathetic union between teacher and 
pupil. After two years and a half at Mt. Vernon, Mr. Ray 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 29 

went to Yonkers, New York, and there finished the year. He 
received very high testimonials for his work at this city." 

As an example of Mr. Ray's " toughing it 
through" during these first years can be stated the 
fact that he obtained permission to go to Yonkers in 
the middle of the year, only upon condition that he 
should continue his work as superintendent of the 
Mt. Vernon schools during the rest of the year. 
Accordingly he used to leave Yonkers on Friday, 
ride all night to Mt. Vernon, straighten out matters 
there on Saturday, and return to Yonkers before 
Monday morning. 

An old pupil bears this testimony to the inspiring 
character of Mr. Ray's teaching at Mt. Vernon : — 

" As I look back upon that time I feel that he opened a 
new world for me. His was the grand power to draw forth 
the best qualities within his pupils. I have had some suc- 
cess as a teacher, and I feel that the best I have been able to 
do I owe to the teaching of Mr. Ray. He was always kind 
and helpful. . . . The second year I taught in the Institute 
as assistant pupil, continuing to recite in one study and 
teach three hours a day. While I taught thus I received 
much help and good counsel from him. After I left the 
Institute I did not hear anything from him until 1886, when 
I wrote to him, and received between that time and 1888 
three kind, cordial, and helpful letters." 

At another time the same pupil wrote of him and 
his school at Mt. Vernon : — 

" The school was small, about fifty pupils during the winter 
terms. The work done by the teachers was excellent, and 



30 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

in most cases the pupils responded readily, for we were 
made to realize the importance of good work. He aimed to 
help us both in school and out. Every pupil was made to 
feel that he had a friend who sympathized with him at all 
times and would do everything possible to aid him. It 
was Mr. Ray's aim and wish that the school should have 
a high moral and Christian standing in the community, and 
such it did have." 

At the meeting of the Alumni of McCullom In- 
stitute, Aug. 21, 1890, a more detailed account of 
Mr. Ray at Mt. Vernon, and a sincere tribute to his 
memory, were presented in a paper prepared and 
read by Lucia E, Trevitt. That paper has a place 
here. 

"There are, no doubt, some among us to-day who re- 
member distinctly our impressions on entering the old 
academy eleven years ago this fall. There was something 
in the way the new principal conducted the brief devotional 
exercises, and set about the business of finding out what we 
knew and did not know, that inspired our respect in spite of 
his boyish presence, and made us feel his power as a teacher. 

" The school was small that year, and both Mr. Ray and 
Miss Dillingham must have found much that was discourag- 
ing, for they were used to larger work and better appliances ; 
but their enthusiasm did not flag. 

" Looking back from this distance over the work of that 
year, I can see better than ever how much it was worth to 
us. The two teachers supplemented each other admirably. 
Both were enthusiastic students with an earnest love for all 
that was good in the world of men and books, and what is 
more, with the power of making their pupils love it too. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 3 I 

Mr. Ray was, as he called himself sometimes, a plain, blunt 
man with a practical mind and a matter-of-fact way of look- 
ing at things ; while Miss DiUingham was intense, poetic, and 
sensitive. We shall never forget how she opened up to us 
the study of literature ; nor how we found that Virgil with 
Mr. Ray meant something more than the ability to construe 
a passage with the help of notes. I cannot measure the in- 
fluence of that year of study and contact with such minds. 
To so many of us it brought such an awakening out of in- 
tellectual sleep and the revelation of what life could mean, 
that we look back upon it almost with awe. . . . 

" Even had I time to-day I could not give a detailed 
biography of Mr. Ray, as I have only a meagre outline of it 
before me. He came to us from Dartmouth College, where 
he had taken honors, full of youthful zeal and with an ex- 
alted ideal of his profession. We were sorry when his 
ambition took him away from us, near the end of the third 
year in Mt. Vernon ; but recognizing his ability, we cannot 
wonder that he wished for a larger sphere of work and use- 
fulness. This he found in the West, and his labors both in 
Waukegan and Hyde Park, Illinois, were crowned with great 
success. Under his management the high school in Hyde 
Park became one of the best in the State. He wrote for the 
educational papers, and worked during the summer in county 
institutes, thus extending his influence. Many teachers 
have spoken of the help and inspiration he gave them. 
Here, as everywhere, he was among the leaders in the 
church and Sunday-school, and joined heartily in every work 
for the public good, taking upon himself new duties and 
responsibilities every year. Such constant labor without 
relaxation, year after year, was too much for even the 
strongest, and it is no wonder that his strength gave way 



32 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 



and that the call to rest came to him swift and sudden, in 
the prime of life. Such a teacher, citizen, and Christian 
worker is sorely missed. 

" Mr. Ray was married during the summer of iSSo, and 
brought his bride to Mt. Vernon the fall before he left. 
Two children were born to them in Hyde Park, the eldest 
of whom blessed their home only two short years. Little 
Margaret, now more than two years old, remains to comfort 
her mother. 

" It was at Hyde Park that most of his larger work in 
religious and educational lines was done ; but we of McCul- 
lom Institute feel a more tender interest in the promise and 
beginning of that work as we saw it here. 

" Mr. Ray was a born teacher [when he was but twelve 
years old his father saw his gift in this direction, and said, 
when he had explained some point in a lesson to his brother 
with remarkable clearness, "Willie will make a teacher "]. 
He possessed, to a large degree, that quality of personal 
magnetism at once so dangerous and so necessary to the 
true leader of youth, and it was this that made the school 
discipline an unseen force, and gave him his strong influence 
— intellectual, moral, and spiritual — over his pupils. 

" I have spoken of his enthusiasm. It was a flame which 
lighted everything that he did, and kindled an answering fire 
in the hearts of most of his students. It entered into his 
recreation as well as his work, and we saw him thoroughly 
alive on every side. 

" His religious influence was so large a part of his teach- 
ing that one can hardly speak of it separately. His early 
training by his stern Presbyterian father had been a good 
basis for the more liberal influence of his student life, and he 
came to us full of the spirit of the best modern religious 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 33 

leaders. The simple chapel service each morning came to 
mean something more than a form to us ; and we heeded the 
Scripture that was selected for some special reason, and the 
prayer which voiced our every-day needs. In these morning 
talks, and in the more intimate personal contact with us, he 
made us feel that to be religious meant the largest, richest, 
and most beautiful living. 

" I still cherish a quotation which he gave me years ago, 
and which well expresses the spirit of his teaching : ' To un- 
derstand the world is better than to condemn it. To study 
the world is better than to shun it. To use the world is 
better than to abuse it. To make the world better, lovelier, 
and happier is the noblest work of any man or woman.' 

" We are to-day to pay some tribute to his memory and 
express something of our gratitude for what we owe him. 
His wife says of him : ' He crowded the work of fifty years 
into his life.' The work of such a man lives after him, and 
one cannot measure its span by months and years. 

*' 'We live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths. 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.' " 

After Mr. Ray's half-year of work in Yonkers, New 
York, he became superintendent of schools and prin- 
cipal of the high school in Waukegan, Illinois, and two 
years later was chosen principal of the Hyde Park 
High School, which school he made known in many 
States, and with which his name is, for most who knew 
him in the West, forever associated. Again, in mak- 
ing the change from Waukegan to Hyde Park, he was 
obliged to act as superintendent of the schools in 

3 



34 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

the place he had left for nearly or quite a year. But 
he " toughed it through," and nothing suffered for 
lack of his painstaking attention. He himself was 
the one who was to suffer from such excessive 
labor. 

Regarded from the standpoint of mere worldly 
achievement, one is compelled to admire a man who, 
unaided, has raised himself from the position of a 
teacher in an obscure Vermont country school, to 
the position of principal of a high school which he 
himself had developed and given a commanding in- 
fluence in a great commonwealth like Illinois, and 
whose name he had caused to be spoken with respect 
and admiration both East and West. It was no acci- 
dent of fortune that wrought all this. Whatever Mr. 
Ray attained was attained by force of character and 
hard work. No sudden success came to him ; but day 
by day he reached higher ground, and day by day his 
hori;^on widened. His steady upward course must 
finally have led him to the summit of educational 
greatness in this country, had his life been spared. 
Already had he been seen by those above him, al- 
ready were they beckoning to him. Several of the 
best colleges of the West were watching him with a 
view to offering him a professorship. There was no 
limit to his aspiration for the highest success as a 
teacher. Repeatedly had he refused offers to engage 
in business that would soon have increased his income 
many fold. With an eye single to his own high pur- 
pose he kept the upward way. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 



35 



Had he set an easy thing before himself he might 
have done it, and Hved, perhaps ; but with an infinite 
task before him, he died, because he was finite. And 
yet, had he known his ownrend, he would doubtless 
have kept straight on. He did not expect a long 
life, as he sometimes remarked to those nearest him. 
Often were the words of Browning's poem the subject 
of his thought and conversation : — 

" That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it ; 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred 's soon hit ; 
This high man, aiming at a million. 

Misses an unit. 
This has the world here, should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find Him." 

Secure In the belief that Mr. Ray, too, seeking has 
found Him, there is no need that any one try to out- 
line what would have been his course here had he 
lived longer. Better is it to look more closely at 
what has been and what now is. 

While Mr. Ray was pre-eminently a teacher, in 
church also as in school his position was a responsi- 
ble one. At the time of his death he was a trustee 
and one of the members of a building committee in 
the Presbyterian Church of Hyde Park. He was also 
assistant superintendent of the Sunday-school and 



36 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

teacher of a normal class of about thirty young men 
and women. He had been the virtual founder of a 
mission Sunday-school at Parkside, Illinois, and had 
long since had the pleasure of seeing a beautiful new 
chapel, of his own design, erected there for the weekly 
use of two hundred or more grateful people. 

His services to the church in Hyde Park were 
keenly appreciated by its members, and the following 
Resolutions faintly express the personal obligations 
felt by many individuals : — 

The following report of a committee of the Board of 
Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Hyde Park, 
appointed August 17, 1889, was adopted by the Board, 
September 6, 1889. 

In view of the death of Mr. William Henry Ray, the Board 
of Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Hyde Park 
directs the following minute to be placed upon its records, 
and a copy to be sent to Mrs. Ray. 

The death of Mr. Ray has deprived this Board of a most 
active, efficient, and valuable member whose intelligent zeal 
and fidelity in advancing the interests of the church are 
worthy the admiration and the imitation of all. 

Mr. Ray was conspicuous for his constant and earnest 
attention to the business of the Board, and for the cheerful 
promptness with which he always responded to its demands 
upon him. 

Mr. Ray's death, especially at the present time, this Board 
regards as a calamity to the church and Sabbath-school, to the 
high school of which he was the energetic principal, and to the 
community to whose higher interests his rare qualities of mind 
and spirit were devoted. This Board tenders to his beloved 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 2>7 

wife and child the tenderest sympathy of every member, and 
commends them both to the loving care of our Heavenly 
Father, whose wise purposes are beyond our comprehension. 

H. H. Belfifxd, \ 
J. C. Welling, \ Committee. 
William C. Ott, j 

Of his work among the needy ones of the commu- 
nity, and of the steps taken by him to found the 
Mission at Parkside, the following letter written by 
himself to the Rev. E. C. Ray, then pastor of the 
Presbyterian Church at Hyde Park, will give a hint. 
Few men have been better exponents of practical 
Christianity than he. He went about doing good, 
and usually left the impression upon those whom he 
had helped that they had helped him, and that the 
obligation was all on his side. 

Easter Eve, 1884. 

My dear Mr. Ray, — In response to your request I 
will try to state some of the needs of the Parkside 
Mission. 

We need first a suitable building in which to hold our 
Sunday-school and other religious exercises. The building 
we now use is totally unfit for the purpose. Arranged for a 
dwelling-house, and occupied in part as such and in part for 
public school purposes, the rooms are small, poorly ventilated, 
and in every way inconvenient. 

We are placed at a disadvantage in two ways, — in that we 
cannot accommodate our increasing numbers, and are un- 
able to assemble all the school in one room for any general 
exercises ; and secondly, because it is impossible to invite 



38 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

the parents in and properly seat them on such a festival as 
that to be celebrated to-morrow. 

1. The spiritual needs of the community are great. Your 
mission school workers are unable to provide as they would 
for these needs. The Macedonian cry is heard from these 
people, " Come over and help us." With a cheap but not 
unattractive building I believe that it would be possible to 
gather the people, at least once in every week, and preach 
to them the Word of Life. The saloons are not closed even 
on Sunday, and entice many to enter their open doors. Does 
not the Lord call upon the people of this church, whom he 
has made his stewards, to throw open in Parkside the doors 
of some house of worship? 

2. We need also some means of alleviating the temporal 
poverty in the district. Let me cite a single instance. A 
few afternoons since, one of the teachers of the mission 
school and myself visited a family from which two 
children come regularly to the Sunday-school. We found 
them living in a house of three or four rooms, but two of 
which appeared to be occupied. The house faces a marsh 
which was, on the day of our visit, filled with water. With- 
out was dirt and every invitation to disease, within was 
poverty, wretchedness, and sickness. 

Two or three children, half-clad and hungry, met us at 
the door and ushered us into a room in which was a cradle 
where a wan baby lay crying, a table, and a tumble-down 
and next-to-useless cooking stove. There was no chair nor 
was one seen in the house. The mother was half-clad in 
a petticoat, an old shawl thrown over her shoulders and 
wrapped about her body, and was barefoot. She was ill, 
suffering from what appeared chills and fever, and was bend- 
ing over a wash-tub set on the floor. She had been ill most 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 39 

of the time since the three-months-old baby was born ; while 
the husband and father had been unable during a large part 
of the winter to earn anything for his family. There were 
two beds to be seen, — these to afford sleeping accommoda- 
tions for father, mother, and at least four children. 

Before the Gospel is preached to such as these something 
must be done to lessen their temporal distress. For these 
and many others similarly situated, we ask a generous con- 
tribution. For these our Lord died. That they might live 
He rose on the first Easter morning, and He says, " Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye 
have done it unto Me." 

Yours in the work, W. H. Ray. 

Besides his work in church, Sunday-school, and 
Parkside, he was one of the founders and most ardent 
supporters of the Young People's Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor in his own church. He recognized 
the fact that most of the young people had few op- 
portunities of hearing first-class lectures and en- 
tertainments, and accordingly, in the winter of 
1 887-1 888, arranged a course of lectures by the best 
city speakers, and, almost unaided, secured the finan- 
cial and popular success of the course. 

Nor were his energies confined to his own church 
and society. Not the least helpful to the community 
was his work as a member of the Board of Directors 
of the Hyde Park Lyceum, — an organization formed 
for the purpose of furnishing good books and a 
pleasant reading-room for the young people of Hyde 
Park. His many-sided nature touched humanity on 



40 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

every side, and always to its good. The following 
letter belongs in this place. 

Chicago, August lo, 1889. 

Dear Madam, — In the general loss sustained by the 
community in the death of William H. Ray, the Hyde Park 
Lyceum shares too deeply to remain silent. Mr. Ray has 
served on its various committees most helpfully during the 
past four years. As a member of the committee on books, 
his association with the young people of the town, — to whom 
he was so wise and sympathetic a friend, so inspiring a 
leader, — enabled him to suggest the most useful and attrac- 
tive books to buy, and always to counsel a liberal expenditure 
in this direction. 

None of us will forget the graceful and fitting words in 
which as member of the entertainment committee he intro- 
duced our various speakers to their audiences. In all de- 
partments of our work we will go on more sadly and heavily 
fur want of his cheerful assistance. As a Board and as 
individuals we desire to extend our deep sympathy to his 
wife, and to assure her that we share with her a sense of 

irreparable loss. 

Sincerely, 

Annie Hitchcock, 
In behalf of the Board of Directors 
of the Hyde Park Lyceum. 

Every summer after he came West, he had been 
engaged in institute work in various counties, and 
thus came in contact with a great number of the best 
teachers in the State. His influence upon them was 
always inspiring. One who knew him intimately 
and who often taught with him in institute work, 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 4 1 

writes to Mrs, Ray: " Could you hear the expressions 
of deep sorrow felt on the part of scores of friends of 
Mr. Ray here, and the feeling of kindly sympathy for 
you and the dear little girl, I am sure it would be 
gratifying to you. The influence of his work and 
life will never cease, wherever he came in contact 
with teachers." 

Mr. Ray's literary work had been of a high order. 
Besides many lectures and papers before reading 
clubs, high schools, and teachers' associations, and 
frequent contributions to educational journals, he 
\vrote often for " The Dial," of Chicago, and his 
criticisms of historical and economic works in this 
journal were authoritative. In some cases, the au- 
thors of the books reviewed wrote to thank him for 
his criticism or for his genuine appreciation of their 
efforts. Let the following letter serve as an example : 

65 Pleasant St., Dorchester, Mass., May 12, 1888. 
Mr. W. H. Ray : 

My dear Sir, — I want to thank you heartily for your 
admirable review of " Napoleon and the Russian Campaign," 
in " The Dial " for May. The book has received a good deal 
of attention, but I do not remember any notice that has 
given so just and adequate an idea of what the author has 
undertaken to show, as your article. 

Yours very truly, 

Huntingdon Smfth. 

In response to a request "from the Editor of the 
" Illinois School Journal," he wrote a series of arti- 



42 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

cles which appeared in that journal for 1 887-1 1 
He also wrote for the " New England Journal of 
Education " and other educational papers. As a 
member of the Chicago Literary Club, he prepared 
and read before the club a paper on " Russia in 
Asia," that was afterwards printed in the " Atlantic 
Monthly " (April, 1887). Of this article " The Dial " 
for the same month said : — 

" Mr. W. H. Ray's paper on ' Russia in Asia,' in the 
* Atlantic ' for April, is an admirably concise and well 
digested statement of Russia's movement and policy toward 
the Indian frontier. One cannot wonder at the outburst of 
England's poet laureate : ' Russia bursts our Indian barrier. 
Shall we fight her? Shall we yield? ' " 

So far as it can be completed, a list of Mr. Ray's 
articles for periodicals and the miscellaneous papers 
left by him will be found on another page of this vol- 
ume. They cover a wide field and show great prom- 
ise of what their author might have done, in almost 
any line he chose, had his life been spared. 

During the last year of his life, when his brain was 
not able to rest because of the disease that was irri- 
tating it, his activity was marvellous and the quality 
of the work he did superior to all he had done be- 
fore. Besides his work in school and church and 
town (during a part of the year he was a member 
of fourteen different committees throug-hout the 
State), a notable effort of this year, and perhaps the 
crowning hterary effort of his life, was an address on 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 



43 



George Rogers Clark, given in a lecture course in 
Bloomington, Illinois, and also in the Manual Train- 
ing School Course of Lectures on American History, 
in Central Music Hall, Chicago. Much of the mate- 
rial for this lecture was obtained from original manu- 
scripts, and thus was made public in Illinois several 
months before it was accessible to the ordinary- 
reader. Theodore Roosevelt in his " Winning of 
the West," published since Mr. Ray's lecture, covers 
the same ground, but not more eloquently. 

During this last year Mr. Ray presided over the 
deliberations of the Illinois State Teachers' Associa- 
tion, with such courtesy and spirit as to compel the 
admiration of all, even of men grown old in the ser- 
vice. His opening address on this occasion, with the 
subject " The High School and American Citizen- 
ship," was masterly. 

Here is an estimate of his ability as a presiding 
officer from one who had taught in the Springfield 
schools for twenty years and thus had been familiar 
with all the recent meetings of the Association. 

" The best part of this week has been given to our Annual 
State Teachers' Association. I met your high school prin- 
cipal, Mr. Ray. Do you not consider him a man of unusual 
ability? He gave us that impression. He was chosen to 
fill the president's chair in Mr, N's absence, and we have not 
had so good a presiding officer for years." 

From the records of the Illinois State Teachers' 
Association for 1888, the following is taken: — • 



44 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 



On motion of Dr. Edwin C. Hewett, a vote of thanks 
was extended to the President, Wm. H. Ray, for the able 
discharge of his duties. 

[Signed] F. T. Oldt, Secretary. 

With a mere mention of numerous unwritten ad- 
dresses made before the Cook County Teachers' 
Association, Christian Endeavor Conventions, Chau- 
tauqua Clubs, and other meetings, both religious and 
educational, there remains one address, also of this 
last year, that demands a further word. He had 
consented to speak before the graduating class of the 
Rock Island High School, but the train that was to 
carry him there was found to be behind time. At the 
first opportunity, therefore, Mr. Ray climbed into the 
engine cab and so prevailed upon the engineer that 
the engine was put upon her mettle and made up 
so much time that he was able to walk calmly upon 
the platform at the appointed hour. He was greeted 
with great enthusiasm, and those who heard him then 
say that he spoke as he had never spoken before, and 
that his words came with melting tenderness and 
wonderful power to the strong young hearts before 
him. The principal of the school at that time further 
says that Mr. Ray's influence upon the Rock Island 
School, from this address and from occasional visits 
before, was remarkable. Indeed, so fully and person- 
ally had he become a part of the lives of many of the 
pupils that when, to a party of them on their way 
home in great glee from a vacation trip with one 
of their teachers, the news came of Mr. Ray's death. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 45 

their joy was turned to profound sorrow, nor could 
they keep back their tears. 

And so the minds and hearts of all who knew him 
turn naturally and irresistibly from what he did to 
what he was. Men were proud of him for what he 
did ; they loved him for what he was to them. 

Said one of his teachers in a letter written upon 
the news of his death : — 

" ' How he will be missed in the state, in the educational 
circles of Chicago, in his church, in every field,' so people 
say ; but my heart only cries out, ' How I shall miss him, his 
friendship, his help, the stimulus of his mind, his just and 
generous criticism which had that rarest of all qualities that 
it left you stronger to try again than you were before, his 
quick thoughtfulness, gentle heart, and warm sympathies.' " 

The last words of Mr. Barton's paper, from which 
so many quotations have already been made, read 
thus : — 

" I cannot refrain from adding my tribute to the manly 
worth, the sterling virtue, the much prized friendship of this 
school-master, dead in his early manhood. A school-master, 
yes, that is the term. We talk of principal and superinten- 
dent and instructor and teacher, but a master is to me 
better than all. William H. Ray was a master ; not over- 
bearing, not tyrannical, always kind and sympathetic, careful 
of mental growth and moral excellence. A master. Can 
we give him a better tide ? Can his monument have a more 
fitting inscription? 

" Speaking of him in all his relations in life, one who knew 
him most intimately says, *He was a just man. First, to 



46 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

himself. In his scheme of self-culture, he did not narrow 
his sympathies to any one line as if culture were a foot-path, 
but looked abroad on the universe with kindling eye. He 
was only unjust to himself in trying to accomplish more than 
one man could do. 

" * He was just to men. He judged but with singular im- 
partiality. He was a true friend, and as steadfast an oppo- 
nent when duty called him. The power and success of his 
brief career are a remarkable testimony to the Socratic virtue 
of justice.' One further word, because it seems to be 
needed. One of his most intimate friends says ; ' Ray's 
exuberance of spirits often misled the estimates of those who 
did not know him as a few of us did.' There was never a 
time when his life was not within deeply serious and earnest, 
and I can gladly bear testimony to the strength of his reli- 
gious life, to its genuineness and growing power. 

" Here we must pause, and it is always easy to do so with 
words of extravagant and indiscriminating eulogy, yet this 
would not be just. Let me rather quote these lines, to my 
mind well expressing his merit : — 

"' Life's work well done; 
Life's race well run; 
Life's crown well won ! ' " 

A second paper, read at the same time and place 
as the above, has a place here. It was written by 
Mr. W. H. Hatch, of Moline, Illinois, than whom no 
one in the State knew Mr. Ray more intimately nor 
had a keener appreciation of his worth. 

*• Eight years ago last fall there came to us a young man 
almost fresh from college. At our last annual meeting he 
stood before this Association as its acting president, in a 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 47 

manner that caused all to concede to him a rank among the 
first of our state. 

" To those who knew Mr. Ray intimately during these 
few years there was revealed a character marked not merely 
by an absence of any whit of meanness but strong in its 
positiveness for all that is good and noble. Uprightness and 
straightforwardness were marked traits in his character. No 
thought of self nor consequences, but ' what is right ? ' was 
ever the question before him. This trait was so plainly re- 
vealed in all his intercourse with others that, though differing 
with him, one was forced to admit the honesty of his 
convictions. 

" This was particularly noticeable in his intercourse with 
irate parents. The burly Irishman who called to serve the 
teacher as the teacher had served the boy, soon left with the 
remark, ' You may thrash my boy all you please,' fully con- 
vinced that his boy was in the hands of one who knew better 
how to deal with him than the father himself. 

*' The same element of character enabled him to speak 
plain and even severe words to his pupils with the result 
of good only and with no bitter feeling. He would deal 
with the would-be-smart young man (or old either) in an 
institute, with the most cutting severity and at the same time 
win his respect and affection. As another has well said : 

" ' There was about him little of the conventional school- 
master. In his own school, personality counted for more 
than formal method, and his personahty was of the ideal 
type. He was so sure of himself and of his pupils that he 
had no need of the time-honored barriers which teachers of 
weaker power are forced to raise between themselves and 
their scholars. There was with him no parade of discipline, 
but there was every sign of perfect control.' 



48 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY, 

" This power was swayed by a gentle, loving heart. Upon 
my first visit to his school, I found at the entrance a kitten 
sleeping in the sun in undisturbed contentment. This well 
illustrated the gentleness that through him pervaded the 
school. 

" He may be well written, as desired by Abou Ben Adhem 
of old, ' as one who loved his fellow-men.' This intense love 
for the young drew all to him and bound them with cords 
that death only tends to strengthen. This is well illustrated 
by an incident that occurred last fall. Some one inquired of 
the Superintendent of Oakwood Cemetery for direction to Mr. 
Ray's grave. After locating it as best he could, he added, 
* You will distinguish the grave by the flowers. Scarcely a 
day passes that children do not come here with wild flow- 
ers to place upon his grave.' What lover of children could 
wish to leave a sweeter memorial than is shown by this? 

" His earnestness communicated itself to all with whom he 
came in contact and led them to feel the importance of the 
work in which he was engaged. This was remarkable upon 
his Board of Education, from whom he was able to secure 
almost anything he wished. To his credit be it said that he 
refused to continue in his position unless the power of the 
appointment of his assistants and the direction of all affairs 
of his school were placed in his hands. His motives were 
pure and unselfish. In fact, he had so thoroughly surrounded 
himself by an atmosphere that was an outgrowth of his own 
unselfishness, that the barbs of petty personal thrusts never 
reached him. With him the contest was ever one of ideas, 
not of persons. 

" It was in the school-room, however, that his genius was 
most apparent. As an instructor I never saw his superior. 
A prominent school-man wrote me, after an extended trip 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 49 

through the West, ' I have, as you know, come in contact 
with the majority of the prominent high school men west of 
the Hudson, and it is no disparagement to the rest to say 
that Mr. Ray impressed me as the best of all.' 

" His method was the Socratic, pure and simple. His 
questions were well chosen, carefully formulated, and logically 
connected. He was thoroughly conversant with his subject 
in all its phases, and consequently left free to study carefully 
the mental state of the pupil and formulate his question 
accordingly. Inattention in his classes was unknown. 

"The boy in him never reached maturity. All who knew 
him best will never forget his ringing boyish laugh and 
hearty, cordial hand-grasp, as he looked you straight in the 
eye with a glad smile that showed his greeting to be genuine. 
Full to overflowing of spirits that never flagged, he was 
never too tired for a good time. Respect him as we shall 
as a man, admire him as a teacher, revere him as a genius, 
we shall ever love him as the genial companion and loving 
friend. In his life is well exemplified the fact that a noble 
purpose, backed by a determination that no obstacle can 
turn aside, achieves ends that genius may fail to attain. His 
nobility of character, loftiness of purpose, purity of motive, 
are elements that will live in the minds of all after his rare 
gifts of intellectual power are forgotten. 

" The life of man is measured not so much by its length in 
days as by the intensity of its efforts, the breadth of its in- 
fluence, and the fulness of achievement. By this standard 
the life of William H. Ray will rank among those who have 
been called in the fulness of years. He has — 

" ' Breathed a song into the air, 



And the song from beginning to end 
Will be found again in the heart of a friend,' " 
4 



50 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

or friends in whose hearts and lives he still remains the 
reality of a living presence. Who will dare to say that less 
than aeons of eternity will bound the influence of such life? 

" The burden of his whole work was to bring youth into 
harmony with God and fellow-man, and his greatest work is 
written in the lives of his pupils who, lifted into a higher and 
purer atmosphere, will ever catch broader glimpses of the 
great world of man about them." 

The Illinois State Teachers' Association at the 
same meeting passed the following resolution : — 

Resolved : That in the death of Principal William H. 
Ray, of Hyde Park, the Association has lost one of its most 
active and valued members ; the cause of secondary educa- 
tion, a noble advocate and representative ; the state, a true 
man and ideal teacher. 

Flora Pennell, 

Secretary for 1889. 

With the Northern Illinois Teachers' Association 
he was still more intimately and helpfully connected 
than with the State Association, and by this body, at 
a special meeting held in his memory in Englewood, 
in September, 1889, this resolution was read and 
adopted : — 

Englewood, Illinois, September, 1889. 

Whereas, another loved companion and earnest fellow- 
worker has fallen by the way, and realizing that the educa- 
tional work of this State has suffered, in the death of Mr. 
William Henry Ray, an irreparable loss : 

Be it rksolved : That we, the teachers of the Northern 
Illinois Teachers' Association, testify to his sterling worth as 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENR Y RAY. 5 I 

a man and a teacher. We feel that in his death every good 
cause has lost a helper, and every honest man a friend. We 
as teachers have lost the inspiiing influence of his presence 
and voice. The ideal teacher, he lives in the lives of his 
pupils and our grateful hearts, where his memory will ever 
lift us to higher purposes and nobler motives. 

Resolved : That we extend to his bereaved wife our 
tenderest sympathies, with the earnest hope that this life, so 
short in years but full in its fruit and so far-reaching in its 
influence, may be ever with her as a precious memory, com- 
forting her with the purity and unselfishness of its motives 
and fulness of its achievements. 

Leslie Lewis, 
W. H. Hatch, 



'' \ Committee. 
:h. ) 



Said Mr. Hatch, in the letter which conveyed the 
above resolutions to Mrs. Ray, — 

" The thought of Mr. Ray and his life among us pervaded 
all the deliberations of the Association, and we felt his in- 
fluence as of one present. His name was upon every lip. 
I never realized before how wide-reaching his influence 
was." 

A letter to the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, asking permission to print in this volume 
a letter requesting Mr. Ray to serve a second time as 
one of the State Board of Examiners for the issuing 
of State Certificates, elicited this reply : — 

There is no objection at all to your using the letter I wrote 
to Mr. Ray, at the time mentioned, asking him to be one of 
the State Board of Examiners. The letter was written be- 
cause I thought he was a worthy man, and a man who 



52 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

would give character to the gradings upon which the certifi- 
cates were to be awarded. I wished to fortify myself before 
the people by the help of men whose fitness as examiners 
would be recognized. 

Very truly yours, 

Richard Edwards, 
Superuitendejit of Public Instruction. 

From the correspondence of Mr. Ray with Mr. 
M. B. Drew, whom he had never seen and to whom 
he had written merely on business, the following is 
selected for the purpose of showing how Mr. Ray's 
influence was felt even by those whom he never 
saw. 

Marshall, Lyon Co., Minnesota, June 15, 1888. 
W. H. Ray, Esq., 

Hyde Park, Illinois. 
My dear Sir, — I have just received yours of the 12th, 
containing kind expression of confidence and friendship, 
as well as an invitation to visit you. Nothing would give 
me more pleasure than to see you at your home, unless 
it would be to see you at my home here. I am glad to 
find a man occasionally who can take time to give vent to 
kind thoughts, without which this world would be worthless 

and cold. 

Yours, 

M. B. Drew. 

The same writer, in a letter to Mrs. Ray after the 
death of Mr. Ray, says: "I received from him the 
kindest letter I ever received in my life from any 
man whom I had never seen." 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 53 

The following letters, written during the compila- 
tion of this volume, also illustrate marked traits in 
Mr. Ray's character: — 

Princeton, Illinois, November i, 1890. 
My dear Sir, — I have among many reminiscences of 
Mr. Ray, which are pleasant matters of remembrance to my- 
self, perhaps one or two which may reproduce him in a 
grateful light to those of his friends who were much better 
acquainted with him than was I. From the time when I first 
met him, I felt that he was a bright man, full of the ability and 
intention to make others happy ; and later, as I came, now 
and then, to have casual business relations with him, I was 
deeply impressed by his alert, strong spirit of helpfulness. 

Not only was he faithful in duties professionally laid upon 
him, — this were not noteworthy ; it belong? to teachers as a 
class, — but he sought opportunities to be helpful. He 
would go a long way out of his common path to show this 
ever-present spirit of faidifulness and friendliness. If this 
makes a rare man, Mr. Ray was a rare man, or I have the 
grateful mal-adroitness to misread him. An incident will 
illustrate. 

In the Spring of 1889, as the Centennial Anniversary of 
Washington's inauguration approached, I wished to procure, 
for distribution to my pupils as a souvenir of their participa- 
tion in our exercises, some medals which had been provided 
by a committee of the Board of Education in Chicago for 
such use, and of which they had a surplus. 

Having lost the advertisement, I thought it possible Mr. 
Ray might be able, with small trouble to himself, to put me 
on the track again. 

I wrote him asking whether he could name the proper 



54 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

party. Not hearing from him quite so soon as I anticipated, 
the matter had been dismissed as being probably outside his 
knowledge, and I felt really chagrined that he had been 
troubled by it. How httle I knew the man ! A day later 
he wrote me that he did not know the address, but was in 
the way of finding it. Two days later he wrote again, inci- 
dentally showing that he had been up to the city for the 
purpose of hunting up the proper office, and not encounter- 
ing the person in charge, had made an arrangement with a 
third party which resulted later in a letter containing the 
desired information. All this was at serious cost to a very 
busy man. Now, the ordinary man, being busy, would have 
courteously said that he had not the information sought, and 
the matter would have rested there. 

This was not Mr. Ray's way. He would take any amount 
of unusual trouble to help a man whose claims upon him 
were of the slightest. This was one of the secrets of his 
hold upon men. He had a host of friends because he 
showed himself friendly. 

Another of his characteristics came to my notice when, in 
October, 1887, he became for a few hours a guest with my 
family. We found him full of sparkling spirits, both in con- 
versation and at the family board. After a while, the repast 
having been finished, he quietly disappeared from our circle, 
but soon revealed his whereabouts by the irrepressible racket 
into which he had fallen in company with the little six-year- 
old girl of the family. 

We adjourned to investigate, and found the two, Mr. Ray 
and the little girl, rivalling each other in jumping from the 
end of a high porch to the turf. 

They were both equally simple-minded about it, equally in 
earnest, and equally happy. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 55 

The child remembers him to this day as the improvised 
companion of her jolly frolic. Here was revealed another 
secret of his influence with humanity. He met each speci- 
men on its appropriate level, and did it not as a matter of 
acting but as a matter of nature, — that one touch of nature 
makes the whole world kin. 

He grew old with the experience of life, and met the 
serious situations of business with all considerateness, but he 
kept his heart green. He had strong thoughts for his equals, 
but he had also warm blood in him for the young, and merry 
ways for the little children. Such men get years and wisdom, 
but they cannot grow old, — 

" For let the cynic grumble as he will, 
Except in cares, a good heart grows not old ; 
The rill of inward laughter bubbles yet, 
'Twixt cressed banks fresh with the scents of spring." 

Nay, further, such serviceably good men as our friend 

Wm. H. Ray die not. How could this be? They are 

translated. We shall find them again. 

Yours truly, 

H. C. Forbes. 

Beloit College, November 22, 1890. 

My dear Sir, — My heart goes along very warmly with 
the plan you have, with others, of giving the friends of our 
brother teacher, Wm. H. Ray, a memorial of that good, 
brave man. I do believe that such a story of such a man 
who did his work not in the most conspicuous places of 
privilege, where dwell the usual subjects of biography, but in 
the humbler walks which most of us are frequenting, will do 
most to help us frame the ideals we especially need. 

The best memento which good people can leave behind 
them is written in the character and lives their influence 



56 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

helps divine Providence to form ; but it makes me happy 
to think that some such expression as you will furnish of 
what you and others have had given you by our friend v»'ill 
again and again be in the hands of young teachers to show 
them what there is for them to do and to be ; particularly 
that Mrs. Ray and her child will always have the privilege, 
so often as they open the book, of being reminded by the 
testimony of others, as well as by their own hearts, of the 
blessed legacy bequeathed to them. 

Mr. Ray came to see us three winters ago, and lectured 
in the interests of normal training before the college and the 
academy. I need not say that the lecture was all we wished, 
and how grateful we were. Especially the man charmed us 
all. So alive, so full of the responsibility and ardor of his 
work, so broad and rich in his conception of the Life and the 
Light of the world. 

How meagre the learning which does not hold all its 
possessions of scientific truth upon Him as their organizing 
and explanatory principle ! How feeble the moral power of 
whatever endowed teacher who does not hide himself be- 
hind the spiritual love of Him in whom there is no darkness 
at all ! I need not say that I shall read the volume you 
will send me with deepest interest, neither because it is a 
memorial of my friend, nor because it is the memorial of a 
bright and intellectual spirit, nor because of tender associa- 
tions of our having dear old Dartmouth as our common 
Alma Mater, but because I shall surely find in it the sugges- 
tion of one who was a teacher after the style of Arnold, 
because he had learned his art from the same divine 

source. 

Very sincerely your friend, 

J. J. Blaisdell. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 57 

At the Annual Meeting of the Dartmouth Alumni 
Association of Chicago, held January 15, 1891, a 
paper was read in memory of Mr. Ray, from which 
some extracts may fitly be given here : — 

" The memory of a strong and earnest man passes not away, 
but lingers long in the hearts of those who have called him 
friend. That any one who knew William Henry Ray could 
forget him, might be counted impossible. His hearty pre^; 
ence, the cordial grasp of his hand, his merry laugh, his keen 
eye, quick footstep, the strong, clear tones of his voice, — all 
these scill are with us, but they are not the man, and when 
they have grown dim and faint there shall still remain, clear 
and shining in our hearts, the character and soul, that elusive 
spiritual essence which no pen can fully describe, but which 
never loses its power and individuality. 

" While he lived hearts loved him, weak spirits trusted him, 
strong souls recognized him, the world about him felt his 
power. Now that he is gone, it remains only to put in 
words this love and recognition, and, to leave the record for 
those who knew him not. Born June i, 1858, he died at 
an age when most men have but fairly begun their work, and 
learned their place in life. Though his life must thus seem 
to our mortal eyes unfinished, it was long enough not only 
to show plainly to the world what he could do, and what he 
intended to do, but to leave much actually accomplished 
behind it. 

" The boy William grew up in narrow surroundings and in 
the midst of hard work, but having always about him the 
pure atmosphere of a genuine home where love for good 
and high things prevailed, where tender hearts and their 



58 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

aspirations were cherished and encouraged, where strict 
integrity and uprightness were the rule, and where Christian 
courtesy and gentleness softened and brightened all the 
home life. 

" Intellectually, Ray was a bright, keen, original thinker, 
with a mind of unusual activity and force. He possessed to 
a marked degree the genius for hard work, and in addition 
to his school work, was daily occupied with book reviews, 
articles for educational journals and associations, and literary 
papers. What he had to say upon educational topics was 
listened to by the world of schools and teachers as coming 
from one who spoke with authority. From his daily ex- 
perience in the class-room, he deduced principles and sug- 
gested methods capable and worthy of wide application. 

" His own power as an instructor was great and unusual. 
To sit for an hour in his class-room was an education and 
an inspiration to an ordinary teacher. Always brimful of his 
subject and thoroughly posted in all its details, concentrating 
all his attention upon one point after another, and holding 
the minds of his class rigidly to the same point, it seemed as 
if one could see the mind of a child expand under his 
earnest thought-awakening questioning, and quiet yet eager 
manner. His great warm heart took in every boy and girl 
in school, and made each feel, sooner or later, that he had an 
especial interest in him. And such an interest he had in- 
deed, for he was never too busy or hurried to give a word of 
truth to the seeking mind, of encouragement to the dis- 
heartened, of advice to the perplexed, of sympathy to the 
lonely. No amount of trouble was too great for him to take 
in the endeavor to be of service to some one who needed it. 
He never held himself away from his pupils. His presence 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 59 

was sunshine and brisk fresh air in the school-room. His boys 
considered him the best of companions in school and out. 

" His personal influence was great throughout his school, 
but its greatest element lay in the moral power and Christian 
character of the man. He loved his pupils earnestly, and 
his highest aim in training them was to develop in them 
manly, strong, and beautiful character. They saw and felt 
his Christianity in all his daily life, and they recognized it in 
his supreme desire to serve them. In the heart of many a 
young man and woman to-day his helpful influence is yet 
alive as a restraint and an inspiration, and his Christian 
manhood is quietly made a standard of living in many young 
lives. Who can estimate such work? 

" His clear insight, wise judgment, and thorough knowledge 
of men entitled him to the position of influence which he 
held in the community. While his warm impulsive heart, 
alive to every emotion, his quick sympathy, his eager readi- 
ness to be of service, won him friends everywhere, his mag- 
netic, loyal nature and frank, boyish manner kept them his. 
He was a member of the Chicago Literary Club, and was 
there known as a man of culture, an enthusiastic reader, an 
earnest student, a keen critic, a live questioner, a prodigious 
worker. His was a progressive spirit, quick to recognize 
the good in what was new, but not hasty in leaving behind 
all that was old. 

" He was proud, but not too proud to recall the hasty judg- 
ment, or acknowledge the mistake. That he was sincere 
impressed all who met him, and even his enemies acknowl- 
edged it. He was human, impulsive, quick-tempered, full 
of humor. His strength and enthusiasm were contagious. 
He rejoiced to live as a strong man to run a race. 



6o MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

" The impression that he made upon one, even at first, was 
as if the poet's words had been upon his lips : — 

" ' How beautiful it is to be alive, 

To wake each morn as if the Maker's grace 
Did me afresh from nothingness derive, 
That I might sing : How happy is my case ! 
How beautiful it is to be alive ! ' 

" So active was he, so eager in learning, so energetic in 
doing, that when after a few days' illness, in July of 1889, he 
vanished from our sight, amazement almost equalled grief. 
That such life could have been quenched, it is impossible to 
believe. Rather do we know that fully armed and equipped 
he has been transferred to a heavenly service, — 

" ' And having died, feels none the less 
How beautiful it is to be alive.' " 

Surely, however much his friends may admire what 
Mr. Ray did in a more public way, it was through his 
personal influence as a man and as a teacher that his 
Hfe work was greatest. He had a wonderful power 
to help others, and this was the grand purpose of his 
hfe. A part of this power was due to his unusual 
gifts of mind and heart, but more of it depended 
upon his clear, unswerving Christian purpose. 

No labor was too great, infinite pains were as 
nothing, if he could do a person good ; and for the 
encouragement of the reader, may it not be said 
that, whatever his abilities, Mr. Ray's purposes and 
methods can with success be imitated. 

Of his technical work as a teacher there is little 
need to speak more, for it is so well known. In his 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENKY RAY. 6 I 

power to question, to make pupils think, to help them 
during the recitation to unfold and use their powers 
of mind and soul, he had few equals anywhere, even 
in our best colleges. 

But if as a mere instructor he excelled, his life was 
still more potent in its personal relations with both 
pupils and teachers. Here the unselfish purpose of 
his life was everywhere manifest. He once gave in 
answer to the earnest question, " What is the use in 
living, anyhow?" the simple word, service^ and this 
word more than any other seems to have been the 
key-note of all his living. 

The teachers' cloak-room in the Hyde Park High 
School building is connected with the office, and 
twice a day, each day in the year, each teacher thus 
had the opportunity of coming into magnetic personal 
contact with Mr. Ray as he sat at his desk. There was 
always a hearty " good-night" and " good-morning" 
and often much more, — always something helpful. 
A door also leads from the office into the main study- 
room, and this door was always open to the pupils. 
Those who had stayed behind for special work by 
themselves or with individual teachers, or, what was 
very common, for an inspiring confidential talk with 
Mr. Ray himself, always paused, one by one, in the 
door of the office, when they were ready to go, to say 
"good-night" to him and to receive the warm re- 
sponse that went with them like a benediction. One by 
one also the teachers took leave of him, and usually 
before six o'clock Mr. Ray was left alone to complete 



62 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

the details of the next day's work. But no matter 
how late he stayed, the next morning found him 
again at his desk first of all, and from the midst of 
his work there was always a welcome for everybody. 

In a talk before his pupils, in 1888, he used these 
words : " It is necessary that all men should be self- 
masterful. The purpose of school life is to teach you 
to think, to be independent and self-centred." Such 
was ever the tendency of Mr. Ray's personal influ- 
ence. Not only was he their accomplished instructor, 
in the ordinary sense, and their enthusiastic companion 
in athletic sports, but he was their truest friend and 
teacher in all good things, and as such they mourn 
his loss to-day. 

Said one member of his senior class two years ago : 
" After I came to know Mr. Ray, I never cared to 
read any more trash." One of the teachers in the 
Hyde Park Public Schools, formerly a pupil, re- 
marked: "Only once have I ever met Mr. Ray, if 
but to pass him on the street, when he did not leave 
me stronger and better." 

But did every one like this man, and was he 
satisfied with his own life and work? 

He should not be represented other than he was. 
His success made him some enemies, and his hatred 
of sham, formality, and toadyism, together with his 
outspoken manner, made him others. His purposes 
were true and high, and he clung to them always; 
but he often deplored his inability to accomplish all 
that he wished, and sometimes he lacked faith in 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 63 

results. He was an unselfish and strong man with 
the highest ideals ; but he was often tired, and he was 
human. The constant drain upon his vital energies 
and sympathies when away from home sometimes 
caused him to be depressed at home. 

Says Mrs. Ray in a recent letter: " How unsatis- 
fied he always was with what he accomplished, and 
at times depressed because he saw so little resulting 
from his work. But to me the power of his life 
grows stronger and stronger as the months go by 
and I am compelled to live without him." 

" This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
Dies ere he knows it." 

All persons and every work that have ever been 
helped by Mr. Ray, owe more than most of them 
know to the quiet and little-known woman who made 
his home what it was. From the very fact of his 
wonderful activity, he had imperative need of a quiet, 
restful home. He used often to say that he thought 
he was more dependent upon home, and enjoyed 
home more than most men, even though he some- 
times had but little time to spend in it. 

There is no further need to multiply testimony to 
the personal help all those about him had from Mr. 
Ray ; but the following extract from a letter written to 
Mrs. Ray by one of the teachers after she had col- 
lected the papers from Mr. Ray's school-desk should 
not be omitted. Testimony will then have been 
given by college professor and school-house janitor, 
and their opinions do not conflict. 



64 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

'•' Mr. Grady [the janitor to whom Mr. Ray never omitted 
to say " good-night " ] stood in sad and respectful silence by 
the desk for a little while, as I worked. I was touched by his 
saying that he had thought of having one of Mr. Ray's pic- 
tures enlarged for himself, and by his earnest remark that 
Mr. Ray was always kind to every one. It was character- 
istic of his many-sided activity that side by side stood his 
Sunday-school normal-class book and that of his daily recita- 
tions ; that bills for apparatus and copies of the Constitution 
of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor were in 
close proximity." 

He was always a servant of all men and women 
who knew him, and he has left to them the priceless 
service of his life to do them good, and through them 
to do others good. This is a royal legacy, and as 
such must ht received and used. As such the young 
people of his normal class in Sunday-school have 
already received and used it, for they have placed in 
the new Sunday-school room of the Presbyterian 
Church, in Hyde Park, a memorial window bearing 
only the name of William Henry Ray, and the simple 
word, service. Thus to all, young and old, who shall 
henceforth gather in that room, as already to the 
lives of those who have gathered around him while 
living, will continually come sunlight and cheer 
through the " service " of William Henry Ray. 

In another way, also, have those who loved him 
shown their appreciation of his service. His old 
pupils and his friends, feeling in themselves the uplift 
of that liberal education that he spent his life to give 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 65 

them, have placed to the credit of his httle Margaret 
a fund of $750 to be used, principal and interest, for 
her education. Thus will they be able to give the 
child that which the father would have most desired 
for her. 

In no more beautiful and true words can this 
memorial be closed than in those inscribed by the 
wife of Chrrles Kingsley to the memory of her 
husband : — 

DEDICATED TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF A 
RIGHTEOUS MAN. 

Who loved God and truth above all things. 
A man of untarnished honor, — 
Loyal and chivalrous, gentle and strong, 
Modest and humble, tender and true, 
Pitiful to the weak, yearning after the erring. 
Stern to all forms of wrong and oppression, 
Yet most stern toward himself; 
Who being angry, )'et sinned not. 

Who lived in the presence of God here. 

And passing through the grave and gate of death, 

Now liveth unto God forever more. 



APPENDIX: 
SELECTIONS FROM MR. RAY'S WRITINGS. 



APPENDIX. 



A PARTIAL LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF 
WILLIAM HENRY RAY. 

1. Tennyson: A paper read at Read's Ferry, New Hamp- 

shire, January 14, 1881. 

2. Elementary Science in Public Schools. 

3. Translation of Poet Archias : For his Cicero classes. 

4. South Chicago Rolling Mills : A paper prepared for the 

Agassiz Association of the Hyde Park, Illinois, High 
School. 

5. Future Punishment : A paper read in the Presbyterian 

Church, Hyde Park, Illinois, May 15, 18S6. 

6. The Philosophy of History : A paper read before the 

Hyde Park Philosophical Society. 

7. Russia in Asia: An article read before the Chicago 

Literary Club, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly " 
for April, 1887. 

8. Robert Burns : A paper prepared for his school. 

9. How can our Academies and Seminaries be Strength- 

ened? — A paper read in New Hampshire before a 
Teachers' Association. 



^o 



APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 



10. The Study of Literature in the High School : A paper 

read before the High School section of the Illinois 
State Teachers' Association, Springfield, Illinois, 
December, 1888. 

11. George Rogers Clark : A lecture delivered in Blooming- 

ton, Illinois, and in Central Music Hall, Chicago, 
in 1889. 

12. The Public School and Citizenship : A paper prepared 

for the Hyde Park Philosophical Society in the winter 
of 1887-88. Repeated in La Grange, Illinois, and 
before the State Teachers' Association, Springfield, 
Illinois, during the winter of 1888-89. 

13. The Teacher : A paper read several times at teachers' 

meetings, and before the students of Beloit College, 
Beloit, Wisconsin, during the winter of 1887-88. 

14. How to Study: An outline of a talk before the Hyde 

Park High School, 1888-89. 

15. The Religion of Virgil : Prepared for his Virgil classes. 

16. English in the High School : An exhaustive report of 

the English work of high schools in Illinois and in 
many of the best schools in the country, read before 
the Northern Illinois High School Teachers' Associa- 
tion, Kewanee, Illinois, 1889. Published in "The 
Academy " for May, 1889. 

17. Reviews for "The Dial," Chicago : 

Napoleon's Russian Campaign, May, 1888. 
Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters, January, 1888. 
The Life and Times of John Jay, January, 1888. 
Mannasseh Cutler, July, 1888. 
Profit Sharing, May, 1889. 

18. Reading of Young People : A paper read before the 

Hyde Park Lyceum, 1887-88. 



LIST OF WRITINGS. 7 I 

19. Contributions to the "New England Journal of Educa- 

tion " for May 26, 1887, and June 23, 1887, 

20. Contributions to the Illinois School Journal for the years 

1887-88. 

21. Natural Gas: A paper read before the Agassiz Associa- 

tion of the Hyde Park High School. 



r 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. 

[By permission of the " Atlantic Monthly."] 

FOR three hundred years Russia has slowly and stealth- 
ily enlarged her grasp and tightened her hold on 
Northern and Western Asia. At the end of the seventeenth 
century almost the whole of modern Siberia and bleak 
Kamchatka were under the sway of the Russian autocrat. 
Since the day when the great Peter built the city on the Baltic, 
— named in honor of his patron saint, — that he might, as 
he said, have an eye through which to look out upon Europe, 
and seized Azov from the Turks in order to gain a foothold, 
or shiphold, upon the Black Sea, the Russians have con- 
templated the extermination of their ancient enemies, the 
Tartar hordes of Central Asia, and the final occupation of 
their territory. From the time of Catherine the Great, there 
has been added to the purpose just stated another, — namely, 
to get possession of Central Asia, not alone as the material 
proof of Russian superiority over the barbarians, but perhaps 
also as a means of aggrandizement and base of operations 
in a struggle for the vast territory and untold wealth of the 
Indies. 

Since 1725, the time of Peter's death, till the accession of 
Nicholas in 1826, Russia was occupied in overpowering Fins 
and Swedes, in partitioning Poland, in conquering Turks in 
the Crimea, in gaining control of the Euxine, in further 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. 73 

robbery of Persia of its rights and possessions along the 
Caspian, and in subjugating the rude nomadic tribes of the 
great barren steppe between Siberia and Turkestan. The 
process by which this last was accomplished is most interest- 
ing. A line of frontier posts was established, and from these 
agents were despatched into the wild country beyond, who 
persuaded the nomadic tribes to settle permanently by 
families on the land. In due course of time the villages 
thus formed, attacked by the fiercer races on the south, 
appealed to Russia for aid to repel the enemy. Russian 
protection, readily given, soon becomes Russian dominion, 
to which resistance is impossible. The frontier line of 
military posts was moved forward, and similar acts were 
repeated, with the same result, — the establishment of Rus- 
sian supremacy. All this was quietly done ; it did not 
attract the notice of Europe, which was engrossed during 
this period in the career of Frederick the Great, in the 
American and French Revolutions, and the Napoleonic wars. 
It was the work of more than a hundred years to force a way 
south on the east and west borders of the Khirgiz country, 
to bring under a semi-control three million savages, reaching 
from the Altai Range to Lake Issyk Kul, and from Orenburg 
to the Aral Sea and the river Jaxartes, or Syr Daria. Thus, 
across two thousand miles of barren steppe, difficult moun- 
tain ranges, unfordable rivers ; across a dreary country whose 
only inhabitants were the fierce savages known as the 
" Great " and " Little " Hordes, — Russia stretched the strong 
arm of her military, and had, at the close of the Crimean 
War, in 1858, brought the confines of her territory near to 
the door of fertile Khiva on the west, and Khokand on the 
east. It was a tremendous undertaking, accomplished with 
characteristic pertinacity and cunning. Immediately to the 



74 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

south lay a line of fortresses constructed by the Khokandis, 
which would be most useful to the Russians if once in their 
possession. Between i860 and 1864 these forts surrendered, 
one after the other, to the Russian army, giving the Czar 
control over the richest district of Khokand. This was a 
serious matter. No longer could Europe laugh at the 
absurdity of wasting men and money in an attempt 
which was sure to prove futile, — to conquer the barren 
country and barbarous wanderers of the steppe. The 
steppe was conquered ; the subjugation of fertile country 
and settled inhabitants was begun; Russia was one thou- 
sand miles nearer the Persian Gulf and India. Europe 
was alarmed. 

At this stage of the game Russia thought it prudent, or 
expedient, rather, to vouchsafe some explanation of her 
acts. This she did in a circular written by that prince and 
diplomat, and prince of diplomats, Gortschakoff. It was 
necessary — so reasoned our diplomatist — that the two 
frontiers, one starting from China, and extending as far as 
Lake Issyk Kul, the other from the Aral Sea along the Syr 
Daria, should be united by fortified posts, so connected that 
nomadic tribes might not harass and plunder the peoples 
under their protection. It was necessary that the line of 
advanced posts should be in a country sufficiently fertile to 
furnish provisions and facilitate colonization, thus giving 
stability and prosperity, and a means of winning the neigh- 
boring populations to a civilized life. " Lastly," and here I 
quote, " it is urgent to fix the line in a definite manner, in 
order to escape from the dangerous and almost inevitable 
inducements to go on from repression to reprisals, which 
might result in endless extension." "The line now estab- 
hshed," says Gortschakoff, in substance, "is determined by 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. 75 

reason, and by geographical and political conditions which 
are of a fixed and permanent nature." 

Before the ink had become dry on this circular a new 
military province was organized, under the name Turkes- 
tan, ostensibly governed from Orenburg, but in reality by 
the general commanding in the chief town of the province, 
the city of Turkestan. The next step in advance was an 
attack upon the great fortress of Tashkend, which was de- 
fended for raany weeks by the combined forces of Khokandis 
and Bokhariots. The city was finally captured by storm, 
and with it fell the last hope of Khokandi independence. A 
large part of the territory of the Khanate became Russian. 
The civil government of the province is in the hands of a 
native prince, who conducts affairs in accordance with the 
kind suggestions of Russian ministers resident, who is pro- 
tected by Russian troops and carefully guarded by Russian 
police ; in Tashkend itself are a Russian governor and coun- 
cil, and Russian courts and police control the city of two 
hundred thousand inhabitants, while the commercial and 
civil ascendency of Russia enables her to dictate all meas- 
ures of foreign or domestic policy. 

Khokand, conquered, brought new adversaries by a demand 
for the evacuation of Tashkend ; this exaction was preferred 
by the Ameer of Bokhara, who felt that his State would be 
the next object of northern rapacity. Finding his remon- 
strance unheeded, he marched against the Russians in Tash- 
kend, with an army of forty thousand men. Discipline and 
fine equipment won the day, and opened the way to the 
occupation of Khojend, important as a commercial centre, 
and Samarcand, remarkable for its beauty, and renowned 
for its connection with the conqueror, Timour Tamerlane, 
who died within its walls, and whose dust is entombed within 



76 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

its precincts. Thus the great Jaxartes Valley was added to 
the widening Russian possessions, and the historic ground — 
perhaps the cradle of the human race — passed underneath 
the sway of a hereditary foe. 

Two years later Khojend was actually seized, and Kho- 
kandi power crushed ; next year a fortified town, command- 
ing a view of Samarcand, was occupied, and the Ameer 
threatened with destruction. To avert this he sent out forty 
thousand men, whose rusty guns, slow to fire, burst with 
damage only to those who fired them. The Ameer's army 
was routed, and Samarcand passed under Russian control. 
The fate of these forty thousand foreshadows the destiny of 
all the Uzbeg States, — gradual extinction, or absorption into 
the empire. 

Writing in July, 1868, shortly after the events just nar- 
rated. Sir Henry Rawlinson says of Russia : " Her present 
position is another illustration of the old doctrine that where 
civilization and barbarism come in contact, the latter must 
inevitably give way ; and thus, whether the final consumma- 
tion occur this year or next year or five years hence or 
even ten years hence, come it soon or come it late, we may 
take it for granted that nothing can prevent the extinction of 
the three independent governments of Khokand, Bokhara, 
and Khiva, and the consequent extension of the Russian 
frontier to the Oxus," — a prophecy to be accomplished 
and surpassed much sooner than the vaticinations of most 
political seers. 

We turn to the West, and find the Czar standing on the 
borders of Khiva, where his ancestors had wished to place 
the banner of Russian sovereignty generations before. Peter 
the Great sent a general, Bekovitch by name, to take Khiva ; 
he failed, and was captured and flayed by the Uzbegs. 



JiUSSIA IN ASIA. 77 

About one hundred years later Nicholas sent Perovsky on 
the same errand. We may imagine, with perhaps some 
reason, that Perovsky was met by troops keeping step to the 
beats of a drum whose head was formed of the well-tanned 
skin of his unfortunate predecessor. He too failed most 
dismally, and during more than thirty years Khiva was un- 
molested by the Bear of the North. 

In 1872, notwithstanding the direct orders of the home 
government to the contrary, General Kaufmann planned, and 
in the following spring executed, an attack upon Khiva. 
The expedition was conducted in four columns, two starting 
from the Caspian, and two from opposite shores of the Aral 
Sea. The four columns, numbering only four thousand 
soldiers, headed by the intrepid Kaufmann, arriving within a 
few days of one another, laid siege to a city of more than 
five hundred thousand inhabitants. The contest was sharp, 
short, and conclusive. Russia, after taking to herself all the 
right bank of the Oxus, generously established the Khan as 
sovereign over the remaining portion of his kingdom lying 
on the left of the river, subject only to the suggestions of 
Russian ministers and the burden of an enormous war 
indemnity. 

This conquest gave Russia new power in Asia. Already 
her vessels floated on the Caspian, and her naval stations 
were established on the Persian shore of that sea ; but now 
her fleets could sail the inland Aral, and her vessels steam 
up the Jaxartes to within less than one hundred miles from 
Samarcand, and up the Oxus to within a much shorter dis- 
tance from Bokhara, and meet with no more opposition than 
that offered by the natural current of the streams. 

In the opinion of the Russo-phobes, every conquest made 
by Russia, each step toward the south, has been only another 



yS APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

advance toward the accomplishment of her ulterior and con- 
summate purpose, to despoil the British crown of its fairest 
jewel, — India. If this is really her end, she is much more 
likely to attain it by a southeasterly route from the Caspian 
than by the long and dreary way across the steppe from 
Orenburg. Pursuing the latter course, her progress is hin- 
dered by bleak wastes, great rivers, yet unconquered tribes, 
and the lofty mountain ranges of the Hindoo Koosh ; should 
she wish to invade India by the former, the path is easy and 
almost open, — entirely so from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian 
to Herat. Says Marvin, " Setting out from Krasnovodsk, a 
Russian could drive a four-in-hand all the way to the Indian 
frontier near Quetta." 

Let us look for a few minutes at this southern route, over 
which the Russian might so easily drive his chariot and four. 
As in the northern advance, the beginning was made in the 
reign of Peter, and continued by Nicholas ; but the first 
definite step was taken when, in 1869, a fleet left one of the 
North Caspian ports, two hundred miles south of the Volga 
Delta, and landed a few men and guns on the opposite side 
of the sea, at Krasnovodsk. During ten years the Russians 
" dawdled about," to use Skobeloff s expression, before mak- 
ing a decisive attempt to secure control of the interior of 
Turkoman country. 1879 saw the attack and slaughter and 
conquest of Geok Tepe. The cost of ammunition and lives 
was fearful. Twenty thousand, or more than half the be- 
sieged, fell, while the rest were scattered and plundered. 
The effect of this victory was almost incalculable. Skobeloff 
had conquered and nearly crushed a people who had suc- 
cessfully withstood Genghis Khan, Timour Tamerlane, and 
Nadir. The power of the North had won the admiration and 
respect of the barbarians, and the everlasting gratitude of the 



HUSSIA IN ASIA. 79 

Persians for ridding them of the marauding Turkomans. In 
this fertile country Russia can give scope to her genius for 
colonization. Already a beginning has been made. A rail- 
road was several years since completed from the Balkan Bay 
to Askhabad, a distance of over two hundred and fifty miles ; 
the Turkomans, scattered by the victory at Geok Tepe, have 
been called from the deserts to which they had fled, have 
been invited, and urged, and assisted to take up their abode 
in their old homes, and to till the soil as heretofore. Vam- 
b^ry, who can see nothing good in Russia and its conquests, 
declares that the Turkomans are in large part sent to hades, 
and the remaining part naked and wretched, and sums up 
the effect of European civilization a la Rtisse by saying that 
in the course of two years six whiskey distilleries were 
opened in Askhabad, and that " even playing-cards, formerly 
known as 'the Koran of the Muscovites,' had found their 
way to the tent of the simple Turkoman." Judging from 
less partial authority, it would seem that, though Russian 
efforts to bring content and prosperity have not been so 
successful as those to subjugate, enough has been done to 
establish tranquillity and peaceful pursuits, and to insure, at 
no distant day, large domestic production and extensive 
commerce. 

Among the inferior officers who assisted at the Geok Tepe 
assault was a bright and reckless fellow, by name Alikanoff. 
He it was who conceived and executed a trip to Merv. 
Setting forth from Askhabad, now the headquarters of the 
Russian troops, a small party, in guise of traders, easily 
made their way to Merv, and gained admission to the city. 
Marvin tells a most entertaining story of the surprise and 
indignation of the city authorities when they found the 
hated Russians in their midst. An assembly, called to drive 



80 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

the intruders from their town, was so impressed with the 
advantages of commercial relations as set forth by the wily 
Alikanoff that it ended in granting them permission to re- 
main and sell their wares. The two weeks of grace were 
employed not so much m buying and selling fabrics as in 
the purchase of friendship and promises of secret and open 
support. Merv was in the last century a dependency of 
Persia, and occupied until 1884 a semi-independent position; 
though it would seem that, had the English exerted their 
influence, an alliance between Merv and the Shah would not 
have been difficult of accomplishment. However this may 
be, Russia absolutely prohibited any intimate relation be- 
tween the Mervis and Persia, enforcing her command by 
the occupation of Tejend, an oasis strongly fortified, lying 
one hundred and twenty miles from Askhabad, and ninety 
miles from Merv, This occupation took place in October, 
1883 ; though the Russian officials at St. Petersburg denied 
all knowledge of it as late as January, 1884. England's 
protestations were of no avail, and thus everything was ready 
for a grand swoop upon Merv, when the time should be ripe 
for such action. One morning hi February, 1884, Alikanoff 
rode out of Tejend at the head of a small company of cav- 
alry. Arriving at Merv, they were cordially received, and 
were presented, according to Russian authorities, with a peti- 
tion to the effect that his Imperial Majesty the Czar would 
take Merv under his protection and government. Possibly, 
if the facts were all known, it would appear that the presence 
of a large force not a hundred miles away, and the impos- 
sibility of sustaining a prolonged siege, had some influence 
in prompting this voluntary submission. Certain it is that 
when the main line of the army approached, a few days later, 
they were attacked by a strong band from the city, who 



/RUSSIA IN ASIA. 8 1 

withdrew only after a severe skirmish in which the Mervis 
were utterly routed. A Russian governor was established in 
Merv, and the Turkoman district was elevated to the posi- 
tion of military province, under the name of Transcaspia, 
equal in rank to Turkestan, and having its capital at 
Askhabad. The home government, notwithstanding its pre- 
tended ignorance of what its generals were doing, rewarded 
the plucky Alikanoff with the governorship of Merv, and 
Komaroff with the order of the "White Eagle" and the 
command of the newly erected province. 

The practical advantage in the possession of Merv is by 
no means small. "The Queen of the World," though in 
ruins, is still a great commercial centre^ lying in the path of 
the caravan trade between Persia and Bokhara, and India 
and Central Asia. Its conquest makes a complete whole of 
the scattered Turkomans, and gives Russia a cordon entirely 
around Bokhara and the small part of Central Asia not yet 
owning her sway. Its importance as a strategic point has 
been acknowledged by all great Asiatic conquerors. In the 
opinion of most military men of the present day, it is the 
natural key to Herat, from which fortress it is distant only 
two hundred and forty miles, almost three hundred miles 
nearer than England's nearest outpost, Quetta. Merv is not 
separated from Herat by impassable mountains, but con- 
nected with it by easy, or not difficult, roads wending 
through the Murghab Valley. Thus it would seem that 
Russia at Merv is a continual menace to English influence 
in Afghanistan, and English power in India. 

But Merv was by no means the limit of Russian advance 
in 1884. Eighty miles to the southwest of Merv, on either 
side of the Hari-Rud River, lie Old and New Sarakhs. New 
Sarakhs is held by the Persians ; Old Sarakhs, in ruins during 

6 



82 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

the last fifty years, was seized by the Russians. Many 
thought it ridiculous that Russia should, twice within the 
year, possess itself of heaps of ruins ; but Komaroff was 
sagacious enough to see its value as a terminal point for the 
railroad already completed from the Caspian to Askhabad, 
and as a means of access to Herat. Sarakhs, too, is forty 
miles nearer Herat than Merv, lies on the same river, and 
is at the meeting of the three frontiers of Persia, Afghanistan, 
and the Turkoman country. By the surrender of Sarakhs 
all of Central Asia was in the power of the Russians. There 
were abundant pretexts, on each successive occasion, for the 
annexation of the Khanates and the Tekke-Turkoman re- 
gion ; would there be equally satisfactory reasons for the 
annexation of farther territory? At Sarakhs, Russia stood 
on the very frontier which she had acknowledged, since 1875, 
as the border of the Ameer's territory. A short time before, 
she had crossed the Oxus, which had been agreed upon 
between England and herself as the line which was to be 
eternally the " thus far, but no farther ; " would she also 
cross the Afghan frontier? The answer came before the 
dawn of the year 1885. England, alarmed, and at last 
thoroughly aroused, entered into negotiations with Russia for 
the appointment of a commission which should finally de- 
termine the Afghan boundary. Sir Peter Lumsden was 
selected to represent the English, and left London for that 
purpose in September ; before he could arrive at Herat, 
Russia had forced her boundary still farther to the south. 

Two rivers flow from Afghanistan into the now Russian 
country, — the Murghab toward the east, the Hari-Rud to the 
west. By either valley is there ready access to the heart of 
Afghanistan. Near the close of this most eventful year, 
Komaroff pushed from Sarakhs up the western valley, and 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. ^T^ 

his lieutenant, Alikanoff, departed from Merv to force his 
way up the Murghab to Ponjdeh, if possible. The western 
advance moved through the Zulfikar Pass, — the same 
through which Alexander the Great led his conquering 
forces twenty-two hundred years before, — and reached Ak 
Robat, seventy miles from Herat ; the eastern division, 
under the new governor of Merv, reached Sari-Yazi, only 
fifteen miles from Penjdeh, to which place the Ameer's 
forces had, in the mean time, advanced. These two Russian 
parties were confronted at Penjdeh, as I said, by the Ameer's 
troops, and at Gul-ran, but little way from Ak Robat, by Sir 
Peter Lumsden and the English escort. Here they stand, 
practically, as they did two years ago, save that the boun- 
dary commission was a fiasco, owing to the dilatoriness of 
the Russian ministers and the remarkable energy of Russian 
generals, and therefore Sir Peter and his attendants have 
gone back to their homes. Here they will stand glaring at 
each other until Russia moves forward another step, — not a 
long stride, only seventy miles, — and plants her foot in 
Herat. 

Why is Herat of such importance, — why the objective 
point of Russia's hopes and England's fears? First, histori- 
cally speaking, it has been reckoned the gate, or to change 
the figure slightly, the key, to India. Alexander, Genghis 
Khan, Timour, Nadir, and Ahmad, each in turn occupied 
Herat before, and that he might take possession of India ; 
and Colonel Mallison, as quoted by Mr. Marvin, declares 
that had not Herat been successfully defended against him 
in 1837, Mohammed Shah, the Persian prince, would have 
made himself also master of India. Second, geographically 
speaking, Herat commands the roadways to Western Turke- 
stan and Afghanistan, and with the railway extending at 



84 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

present to Askhabad, only four hundred miles distant, com- 
pleted to Herat, via Old Sarakhs, Herat would be brought 
near to the Russian borders of Europe. Toward the south 
it looks upon the only way to India, whose border city, 
Quetta, hes but little more than four hundred miles away, 
by no difficult road. Third, strategically, Herat gives its 
possessors the command of the approaches to India, — a 
command hardly to be disturbed. It is a fortified city, in- 
closed by a wall set on an earthwork fifty feet in height, and 
a moat, and overlooked by a strong citadel which is situated 
near the centre of the city, and is also surrounded by a 
moat. All these defences combine to make the town ex- 
ceptionally advantageous as a military stronghold. Fourth, 
add to these three reasons another, and perhaps the great- 
est : that Herat lies in the very heart of a fertile country, 
abounding with milk and honey, corn and wine, and capable 
of supporting, for almost any length of time, an army of at 
least one hundred thousand men, and you see its importance 
to any power which would gain, or long retain, control of 
India. 

No more eminent authority can be quoted than Sir Henry 
Rawlinson, the geographer and general, who wrote fifteen 
years ago : " It is no exaggeration to say that if Russia were 
once established in full force at Herat, and her communica- 
tions were secured in one direction with Askhabad through 
Meshed, in another with Khiva through Merv, and in an- 
other with Tashkend and Bokhara through the passage of 
the Oxus, all the forces of Asia would be inadequate to expel 
her from the position. Supposing, too, that she were bent 
upon mischief, . . . she would have the means of seriously 
injuring us (that is, England), since, in addition to her own 
forces, the unchallenged occupation of Herat would place 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. 85 

the whole military forces of Persia and Afghanistan at her 
disposal." 

The Russians, if not actually possessors of Herat, are at 
its gates, and they are not likely to recede from their present 
position ; nor, judging England from her past record, is the 
government of the Queen of Great Britain and Empress of 
India likely to give fight to the Russians on the score of 
any danger threatened short of the actual occupation 
of Herat. When the steppe was crossed in 1863 England 
protested, and said she would declare war if the Russians 
advanced farther into the three Khanates. GortschakofTs 
circular, already quoted, allayed English fears, and when 
Russia, soon after, occupied a part of Khokand, no war was 
declared. Several times this farce was repeated, but when 
at last Russia, by the annexation of Khiva, planted herself 
firmly on the right bank of the Oxus, both parties agreed 
that ^the crossing of that river by the power of the North 
should be a '* casus belli." Soon after the Oxus was crossed ; 
Geok Tepe, Askhabad, Merv, Sarakhs, the Zulfikar Pass, Ak 
Robat, Sari Yazi, passed under Russian control, — some 
only oases, but others beautiful cities in fertile valleys, and 
all places of importance, each bringing Russia nearer to, and 
then into, the country of the Afghans, which has all along 
served as a buffer between India and advancing Russia. 
Yet England has not declared war, and the student of these 
events begins to wonder if, after all, the Czar will not soon 
lay his measuring rod along the boundary line of the Indies. 

Whatever one's opinion as to the justice of Russia's occu- 
pation and claims, or the honorableness of her methods, he 
cannot but express wonder and admiration at the persistent 
maintenance of a purpose conceived nearly two centuries 
ago with almost infinite foresight, and executed in the face 



86 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITIXGS. 

of frequent defeat, danger, hardship, barbarism abroad, and 
dissatisfaction and threatening anarchy at home, — a plan 
devised with shrewd cunning, and persevered in by brave, 
devoted, ambitious, unscrupulous, audacious generals. 

Russia seems to have a genius for colonization. The land 
that she has gained she has made her own. Russian soldiers 
have conquered the peoples ; but Russian husbandmen and 
merchants and manufacturers have occupied the countries. 
Great manufactories of cloth have sprung up ; vast mercan- 
tile operations have been undertaken and successfully con- 
tinued ; the wilderness has been made, if not to blossom as 
the rose, at least to bring forth fruits and cotton, so that 
from the three Uzbeg States alone Russia imports to Europe 
annually more than ^3,000,000 worth of products. The 
wild nomads have, to a considerable extent, been brought to 
a settled life, and taught industry and the arts of civilization. 
Peace and order prevail, and a European form of govern- 
ment is general. It cannot be denied that this government 
is of military authority, and naturally enough works occa- 
sional injustice, and burdens the people with taxes for 
which sufficient return is not always made, and that little or 
nothing has been done in the way of general education ; but 
native religions are protected, sanitary measures are intro- 
duced into the large towns and cities, and hospitals have 
been erected in many places. After all, the greatest good to 
the Asiatics must be extra-governmental, — a benefit seci^red 
by continued contact with men who, by their European 
education and liberal ideas, are on a higher plane than them- 
selves, and who must sensibly and purposely, or uncon- 
sciously and involuntarily, lift the people of Central Asia to 
better manners, better modes of thought and life, and a new 
pleasure in mere existence and business activity. The great 



RUSSIA IN ASIA. 87 

civilizer, the locomotive, is doing its work. At an expense 
of ^45,000,000 Russia completed her road from the Black 
Sea to the Caspian. Ah-eady she has pushed her line to 
Askhabad, and within a few weeks to Merv, and the cost of 
completion to Herat by way of Sarakhs is estimated at only 
$8,260,000. Should Russia hold Herat, and England ex- 
tend her Indian railway system, now terminating in Quetta, 
to the same place, a trip from London to Calcutta might be 
made in ten days. Political reasons prohibit just now such a 
junction of Russia and England by a five-foot band of iron ; 
but the time will come, soon or late, when through the Zulfi- 
kar Pass will rush the iron horse, a mightier conqueror than 
Tamerlane, the exponent of a nobler civilization than 
Alexander. 

What does Russia purpose in all this increase of her 
domain ? 

Some say Russia's conquests have been planned to draw 
away public attention from the tyranny and oppression of a 
despotic government, and the consequent sufferings of her 
own citizens, — sufferings so intense that an organized revolt 
has been begun by the people, a revolt likely to end in all 
that is implied in the name assumed by the revolutionary 
party, Nihilists. 

Another purpose assigned to Russia is that of securing to 
herself the extensive commerce of China and of all Central 
Asia. Much of the latter is already in her hands, and more 
must fall to her share now that the railway from Askhabad 
is extended northwest to Merv and into the very heart of the 
country of the Khanates. 

Other writers have expressed the opinion that the Czar 
has made this detour in order to secure possession of long- 
coveted Constantinople. If Asia should become his, and he 



88 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

approach the confines of India, England in alarm — so say 
those who hold this opinion — will at last give her consent 
to the realization of Peter the Great's fondest dream, the 
Russian occupation of the proud city on the Bosphorus. 

Still a fourth answer is returned by many in England : 
that Russia has from the first looked to India, and means to 
include that fertile country under her sovereign sway. It 
would appear to the casual observer that this would not be 
so very difficult a feat. The Russian army on a peace foot- 
ing numbers 800,000 well-disciplined troops, and in time of 
war she can call into active service, says Towle, 3,200,000, — 
a prodigious body, one twenty-fourth the whole population 
of European and Asiatic Russia. Her ships of war are 
among the best in the world, and number, including armored 
and unarmored men-of-war, frigates, and transports, nearly 
four hundred vessels, manned by more than 26,000 officers 
and sailors. A commanding position upon the southern 
seas, the control of the richest commerce of the East, a 
victory over her old enemy, England, the glory and renown 
of military conquest, the wealth of the Indies, extension of 
power, are tempting prizes just beyond the frontier line, and 
thus far Russia's territorial greed has overmastered any objec- 
tions to her progress raised on the mere question of right. 

It is possible that Russia's true purpose is a commingling 
of those just named and others. A restless, ambitious^'peo- 
ple, fierce, with enough of old barbarism in them to delight 
in war as a profession and for its own sake, they probably 
have not questioned too closely their purposes in acting upon 
impulses natural to their individual and national character. 

In 18 7 1 Sir Henry Ravvlinson wrote these words: "She 
[Russia] certainly has not contemplated anything like an 
invasion of India ; but it would be to convict her of political 



JiUSSIA IN ASIA. 89 

blindness to imagine her ignorant of what is patent to all the 
rest of the world, that if England has any vulnerable heel it 
is in the East ; that in fact the stronger may be the position 
of Russia in Central Asia, the higher will be the tone she can 
command in discussing with us any question of European 
policy." Yet twice during the present century has the in- 
vasion of India been proposed, — once by Napoleon the 
Great to Paul I., and a few years later by the same general 
to Alexander ; it is said on tolerably good authority that the 
same proposition was seriously considered by Czar Nicholas 
in the early days of his reign. 

Russia openly disavows any such design ; but on no other 
hypothesis is it easy to explain satisfactorily her later ad- 
vances directly toward the Indian frontier, where, as some 
recent writer has said in substance, her presence must be a 
perpetual menace to the prestige of English government and 
arms, and a constant injury to English commercial prosperity. 

It is no business of this paper to discuss the position of 
England, her resources, her means of defence, or the strange 
indifference of her policy, and we must rest the subject here. 
If the struggle for the final possession of India and Con- 
stantinople must come, we can but wish that the Anglo- 
Saxon blood of Western Europe may gain the victory over 
the descendants of the old Tartar race. Should the advance 
of Russia be stayed at Herat, we would hope that the great 
nation which now possesses more than one-half of Europe and 
considerably more than two-fifths of all Asia, and which has 
a population of one hundred million souls, may learn the 
lesson of freedom and justice, and may teach it in turn to 
the barbarian hordes of the conquered lands, and so do its 
part toward bringing on the day of peace and of faith in all 
that is true and noble. 



90 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

Russia is the youngest as well as the vastest nation of 
Europe. Her national life began hardly two hundred years 
ago, her national literature no more than one hundred. 
" She stands," says one of the bishops of her Church, " on the 
threshold of the morning." The danger that threatens 
India and Europe is not that of Russian aggression, but of 
Russian absolutism ; if this danger be averted, the day of 
liberty and light opens for her and her subjects ; the ques- 
tion of Russia in Asia will no longer disturb EngHsh states- 
men, but will be determined in the interests of the state and 
of humanity. 



THE TEACHER. 

THE teacher is the most important factor in all educa- 
tional theories. Without the intelligent cooperation 
of a clear-brained and judicious teacher, the best plans of 
school work are inoperative, and the most logical methods 
are useless. He is the medium of knowledge, the example 
of living, the inspirer of new ambitions, the nurse of mental 
growth, the developer of budding talent, to the school boys 
and girls of this land. Upon the teacher is laid the burden 
of intellectual training for the coming generation. What 
should he be that he may perform his duty? How shall he 
become what he should? 

I. The teacher is the thinker. Much thinking is done 
at second hand. We use the thunderbolts of some Jove, 
shaped in a Cyclopean forge, while we allow our own mental 
furnace to lie idle and cold. The age of superstition dark- 
ened the world so long because men could not or would not 
think for themselves, and now the world is threatened with 
a darker age of infidelity because in the rebound from 
superstitions and creeds many irrationally prefer the views of 
some clever maker of bright or witty sayings to the accurate 
conclusions of deliberate and independent thought. I be- 
lieve a great intellectual calamity threatens our profession 
and the youth in the public schools of our land, a danger 
partly the result of overwork of the teacher, partly the fault 



92 APPENDIX SELECTED WRITINGS. 

of the times, and in part consequent upon the teacher's own 
indifference ; it is this, — the loss of power of thought. The 
average pedagogue must meet so many demands for infor- 
'mation, for social life, for this, that, and the other, that he 
goes before his classes with knowledge hastily gathered, 
poorly arranged, undigested, and half assimilated, and can 
make but a partial success of his instruction. This is a day, 
too, of abstracts and compendiums ; people grasp at the 
facts hung upon a diagram or chart, and hardly question, 
why or how. The same trouble is creeping into the 
schools. The mechanical work of performing a hundred 
examples is not so good as the careful and clear analysis of 
ten. A comprehensive understanding of the causes of a 
single historical event is worth intellectually much more than 
the ability to give the dates of a thousand battles or to recite 
the names of all the monarchs of Europe during the past 
three centuries. 

The study of logic and its laws is not essential to thought. 
Logic presupposes thought as truly as geometry presupposes 
magnitude, and the study of either is ineffectual to make 
good existing deficiencies in brains or brain power. As the 
first step in the mental self-culture of the teacher, — think : 
exercise the mind as you do your limbs, freely, independ- 
ently, frequently. In all the operations of Nature taking 
place in this world, which most admit has been formed and 
still exists in accordance with some great plan born in a 
mind far transcending in power the human, we naturally seek 
for unity, consistency, and reason. We cannot guard too 
carefully against a confusion of some accidental effect with a 
great cause, or against an easy and unquestioning acceptance 
of phenomena without any understanding of the why and 
wherefore. "The search for causes," some one has said, 



THE TEACHER. 



93 



"is characteristic of every normal human intellect." But 
the teacher who must know something of a large number 
of widely different subjects is in special danger of confusion. 
In matters of mere physical science it may not be so difficult 
to understand or explain causes ; but in the field of morals 
or politics or social science or education, where facts are 
more complicated aild truth less easily demonstrated, it is 
sadly common to see reasons vitiated by false assumptions, 
or a careless understanding of causal relations. 

On questions which interest us professionally, — the best 
methods, the order of studies, the capability of the child's 
mind, — our reasonings are not less certain than in the demon- 
stration of a proposition in Euclid ; they are more difficult, 
and the dangers to be avoided are partial observation, hasty 
conclusions, and the distortion of vision caused by personal 
passion or prejudice. It is all-important, then, that the 
teacher cultivate a habit of careful, impartial investigation, 
and an unerring method of reasoning. 

2. Next in worth to the power of protracted and logical 
thought ranks a well cultivated memory. Probably none of 
man's faculties is capable of so high a culture, or is so per- 
sistently abused, as this of memory. In the multiplicity of 
books of reference, of handy volumes of science, art, philoso- 
phy even, of almanacs that are political handbooks, of census 
reports that fill twenty volumes, one has some excuse for 
saying, "Why should I trouble myself to remember that 
which is always just at my hand?" This is an age of sta- 
' tistics, yet nobody can give statistics ; an age of literature, 
but few learn the classics. 

In the early days, the youth of the world, the Homeric 
poems — the Iliad, of 15,619 lines, and the Odyssey, of 
about the same number — were handed down from bard to 



94 



APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 



bard by word of mouth. A half century ago Macaulay, the 
statesman, historian, essayist, said, " If every copy of Milton's 
' Paradise Lost ' were destroyed, I could restore the whole, 
word by word, from my memory." Are we of an effeminate 
race because we should fail, most of us, to repeat one hun- 
dred lines of our favorite English classic, or to give accu- 
rately fifty dates from general history. The value of a 
tenacious and ready memory, reckoned intrinsically or as 
indicative of mental strength, is hardly to be over-estimated. 
Upon this depend the safe guarding of those stores of knowl- 
edge which we may accumulate, the value of our experience, 
and the consequent usefulness of our mental acquirements. 

Fortunately, this is the faculty capable of the readiest 
development. One may cultivate the circumstantial memory 
by an artificial system of mnemonics or catchwords, or better, 
the philosophical memory based on the higher laws of cause 
and effect, and which is so prolific of suggestive power. The 
two most effectual aids to memory are classification and 
repetition. To know the class is to know the essential 
characteristics of the individual. In memory, repetition 
conquers. If one can't remember by once repeating, let 
him repeat seven times, and till seventy times seven times. 
Says Blackie in his most excellent book " Self-culture," " Our 
faculties, like a slow beast, require flogging occasionally or 
they make no way." The results of painstaking practice in 
the exercise of memory richly repay all labor. 

3. The teacher should be observant. Notwithstanding 
the ponderous discussions of school lyceums and village 
debating societies on the question which affords the more 
knowledge, reading or observation, the fact remains that the 
great majority of men go through the world with their eyes 
shut or but half opened. Before us the great mother of us 



THE TEACHER. 



95 



all spreads the open page of her book, printed in fairest 
letters ; the lesson of to-day unlearned, the time spent, the 
page is turned to make way for another written in the same 
character but expressing different thoughts. 

More and more mankind is coming to be dependent for 
its comforts and even necessities upon an understanding of 
the great facts of natural science. To the progress and dif- 
fusion of a knowledge of natural phenomena we owe in 
great part the progress of civilization, even the nourishment 
of the peoples of the earth ; to this we owe our emancipa- 
tion from superstition, — and yet in our schools and among 
our teachers this practical study and the habit of observation 
engendered by it receives but a small portion of attention. 
In poetry and art, in morals and religion, science has its 
place. Says Herbert Spencer : " Think you that a drop of 
water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses 
anything in the eye of the physicist who knows that its ele- 
ments are held together by a force which if suddenly liberated 
would produce a flash of lightning ? Think you that what is 
carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow- 
flake does not suggest higher associations to one who has 
seen through a microscope the wondrously varied and ele- 
gant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded 
rock, marked with parallel scratches, calls up as much poetry 
in an ignorant mind as in the mind of the geologist who 
knows that over this rock a glacier sUd a million of years 
ago ? The truth is that those who have never entered upon 
scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which 
they are surrounded." 

Those studies are really primary which teach the use of 
the eyes, — botany, physics, physiology. The study of no 
branch of knowledge is so pleasing or useful as that of some 



96 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

of the so-called natural sciences. By lack of training the eye 
becomes dim, the ear deaf, a slavish dependence on books 
takes the place of the freedom of thought which observation 
gives. 

We have come now to the true value of education — a 
value that must be appreciated and possessed by the teacher 
as a condition precedent to his success. Skilful training 
may produce a new growth of teachers and children, just as 
surely as skilful grafting and culture may result in a hitherto 
unknown species of apple or rose. New additions may be 
made to a man, as real as if new senses were given, or new 
limbs or seven league boots or an Aladdin's lamp. A new 
faculty of sight is given to the trained eye, and new powers 
are called into play, that have had before but an unknown 
existence ; by the training of the observation, the stupid 
schoolmaster feels a new pleasure in life and in his labor as 
he sees the hitherto unsuspected power in himself; and the 
gain is his pupils. There is no incapacity for observation. 
A sense of our duty, a love of our work, an appreciation of 
the gain in teaching power, are all that is needed. 

4. Although enforcing the necessity of observation, I 
should not be understood as underrating the usefulness of 
books. In them is stored, as in a reservoir, the thought of 
the world, ready for our use. But think not to read every- 
thing or without a well defined plan. 

Great danger arises from desultory reading. An omnivo- 
rous reader cannot gain much good unless he have the 
memory of a Johnson, or an ostrich-like mental digestive 
power. We cannot know all things, and by divine ordination 
what we do know we acquire by patient and laborious study. 
The great thinkers of the world have been men of few books. 
Read then the few books that have influenced history, that 



THE TEACHER. " 97 

contain immortal truth, the seed that can germinate in the 
mind and bring forth fruit. For ethics we look to the Bible, 
for poetry to Shakspeare, for biography to Plutarch, for 
philosophy to Bacon, for science to Farraday, — books as 
grand as the everlasting hills, as eternal as human thought 
itself. 

Every teacher should select some line of study or reading 
outside of the routine of school-room work, and follow this 
systematically and perseveringly. The benefits of such a 
plan are apparent , — the change of work and the partial rec- 
reation attendant upon such change, broadening of mind 
and culture, a lessening of the class isolation that is apt to 
separate our profession from other people, at least in sym- 
pathy of tastes and pursuits, and lastly the real addition to 
our knowledge. 

If there were no other ground on which this branch of our 
subject could be urged, this alone would be sufficient to 
justify the strongest exhortation. When the schoolmaster 
has ceased to learn, he has ceased to understand the difficul- 
ties in the way of a pupil who engages in the acquisition of 
knowledge ; he therefore ceases at that instant to be capable 
of assigning lessons judiciously, and becomes incompetent 
to measure the scholar's mental power or progress. Indif- 
ference to knowledge is the one thing you must dread in 
your pupils, dread that most in yourselves. Roger Ascham, 
" Schoolmaster " to Elizabeth, characterizes his ideal teacher 
as a lover of work, or " one who hath lust to labor." Three 
hundred years have passed, but the characterization is ever 
true ; the profession is still laborious, and yet the weariness 
of the tired teacher comes from wrong or mismanaged labor, 
or that which is distasteful, or which we are conscious of 
doing ill, not from labor which is well organized and suc- 

7 



98 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

cessful. There is a delight in the exercise of power, in a 
sense of difficulty overcome. 

In the four broad fields of history, mathematics, language, 
and natural science, one can never fix his stake and say, 
" Thus far will I go ; this much learning will be sufficient 
for my purpose." Discoveries are constantly being made, 
vast realms of recently conquered territory may be added to- 
morrow, and the honest instructor must go up and possess 
the land which is his rightful heritage. You dare not sell 
your birthright for a miserable mess of pottage. 

One thing else should not be forgotten, — the duty of 
preparation for the daily recitation work. The simplest 
lesson, the most familiar subject, can be taught to far better 
advantage after a few moments' preparation by the instructor. 
This should include a mastery of the subject matter, a care- 
ful consideration of the best manner of presenting it, with 
special reference to the individual peculiarities of the mem- 
bers of the class, full understanding of its relations to what 
has preceded and what is to follow in the course of study. 

I am by no means certain that all of us recognize the 
necessity or advantage of a full and accurate knowledge of 
the subjects which we teach. Allow me to quote from a 
lecture recently delivered in England upon this theme : 
" There is a large percentage of waste and loss in the very 
act of transmission, and you can never convey into another 
mind nearly all of what you know or feel upon any subject. 
Before you can impart a given piece of knowledge you must 
yourself not only have appropriated it, you must have gone 
beyond it and all around it ; you must have seen it in its 
true relations to other parts or truths ; must know out of 
what it originated, and to what others it is intended to lead. 
If you want to teach well the half of a subject, know first for 



THE TEACHER. 99 

yourself the whole or nearly the whole of it. Have a good 
margin of thought and of illustration in reserve for dealing 
with the unexpected questions and difficulties which may 
emerge in the course of the lesson, and look well before the 
beginning, not only at the thing you want to teach, but at as 
much else as possible of what Hes near it, or is akin to it." 

May I add, that the teacher who only keeps ahead of his 
classes, and is barely able to pass a superintendent's examina- 
tion, is next to useless in the school-room, a hindrance in the 
way of advancement, a disgrace to the profession? Whether 
teaching is to take rank as a profession or not depends 
largely upon the broad culture of the pedagogues, or the 
lack of it. The clergyman deals with the deepest questions 
that the mind can attempt, — problems of God and the 
human soul. The physician grapples with facts of Nature ; 
he learns to observe keenly and draw conclusions accurately ; 
he becomes broad with the very breadth of his science. The 
law, in many of its branches technical and artificial, in others 
leads out into the grand arena of human rights and liberties, 
and deals with large questions. These demand a liberal 
education, a complete curriculum. In teaching alone, whose 
work is the education of what Plato calls the /3ao-tXtKos voDs — 
the royal mind — has the tendency been to narrow and make 
technical our training. In the past there seems to have 
been no middle ground between the pedantic schoolmaster 
who talks of shop, who smells of his fusty, musty record 
books, as an inveterate smoker does of tobacco, and the 
young boy or girl graduate who is keeping school, the one 
to earn a little money to carry on his study, the other to get 
the means for a few extra dresses. 

But courage ! the mere lump must fall behind ; the grip 
of the dead hand is weakening ; the man and woman of 

LofC. 



lOO APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

brain, of generous soul, of broad culture, of ready sympathy 
with the wide awake life of to-day, is called for ; the place 
stands ready for these and they come. The past stands 
shadowed and breathless and silent save for the falling of 
some old error once enshrined. 

"Whatever of true life there was in thee 
Leaps in our age's veins. 
The present moves attended 
With all of brave and excellent and fair 
That made the old time splendid." 

5. The teacher of the future — would it might be of the 
present ! — will be Pauline in one respect at least, " apt to 
teach." Socrates said that if any one had anything worth 
saying he would find a way of expressing himself. Granted 
that this is true, we cannot afford to neglect the acquisition 
of some art of expression. One may have his mind filled 
with treasures of knowledge from every department of human 
thought, and possess but buried gold. For lack of this art 
of teaching many a child turns thirsty and unsatisfied from 
that which should be a fountain of water of life ; many a 
teacher leaves the room at night weary and discouraged see- 
ing her partial success and hardly knowing how to remedy 
the fault. The faculty of ready narration and apt illustration 
is sometimes natural, generally acquired, gained by long and 
tedious drudgery on the part of the teacher and expense on 
the part of the pupil. One may find encouragement in the 
example of the greatest orator of ancient Greece, whose 
thunder disturbed the Macedonian monarch on his distant 
throne, who is said to have acquired something of his power 
by practice on the sea beach with pebbles in his mouth, and 
in a gloomy cave with a naked sword hanging over him. 
Only a quack delights in his own words, but the school- 



THE TEACHER. lOI 

master cannot afford to underrate the ability to illustrate well, 
to explain readily, and to state exactly. 

The best training for the formation of a ready style is 
familiarity with good speakers and writers. A man's vocabu- 
lary depends upon the company he keeps. Read the best 
compositions of lofty-minded men, and you cannot fail to 
catch much of their spirit and power of expression. 

If so much had not been said before this Institute with 
regard to the teacher's care of his health, I should like to 
dwell at length upon that very important subject ; but I pass 
that and proceed to speak of some of the qualifications of 
the teacher which, not merely intellectual in their nature, 
belong rather to the heart and soul of man. In no other 
profession does the man stand so far above his mental 
ability and acquirements. Among the exploded theories of 
the past is one which found utterance in the maxim, 
" Knowledge is power." At no time has mere knowledge 
accomplished much ; the most learned man may starve ; 
and he deserves to starve unless he can prove his fitness to 
live by his real work for mankind, by the benefits his knowl- 
edge has conferred on his fellows. One of our lawyers 
has put it thus : — 

*' Then is knowledge power ? If I were a saint, 
I 'd say that some is, and that some of it aint; 
But much more depends, you '11 find out, my son, 
Upon how you happen to catch and hold on." 

For lack of knowledge the teacher may fail, but with a per- 
fect encj'clopedia of information at his instant disposal he 
may make a failure the more ignominious because of his 
great information. 

What then are a few of the extra-intellectual qualities of 
the schoolmaster? 



I02 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

1. Sunniness of disposition, if not natural, may and must 
be acquired. Put your choice plants into a room wliere the 
sun never shines and you will have weak, white, dwarfed 
slips without buds of promise, with hardly the signs of life. 
Take them from the dark room and put them in a sunny 
window. They spring up ; they put forth leaves ; they bud ; 
they reach out their tendrils toward and around their sup- 
port ; they turn the faces of their leaves to the sun, great 
source of heat and light and life. So the little plants given 
to us will instinctively turn toward the sunny face and words 
of the cheerful teacher, or dry up and wither in the gloom 
of the severe face and repelling power of one who brings 
his worry and care into the school-room. The intercourse 
and work of the teacher is with the young, the buoyant, the 
happy; and a good fund of animal life and spirits in the 
master puts him on good terms with the children and gives 
him a power over them attainable in no other way. If the 
teacher, standing before his class as the embodiment of eru- 
dition and of the best of life, is gloomy, visibly worried, and 
impatient, the consequence to the pupil must inevitably be a 
dislike of study, and an idea that after all life is not beautiful 
or worth the having, — a conclusion which, when we con- 

.sider his premises, we must admit is fairly rational. 

2. Closely united with this cheerfulness of manner is the 
need of an even temper. It may be that my judgment is 
not impartial, but I often think that it is not possible that, in 
any other profession than our own, there are so many causes 
which operate daily and almost hourly to try the patience. 
Forgetfulness, lack of attention, sublime indifference, stupid- 
ity, approaching sometimes almost to idiocy, and even 
occasional disobedience, unite to tempt the instructor to lose 
all equanimity and even self-control. Unless we are pre- 



THE TEACHER. IO3 

pared to take pains with ourselves and cultivate the divine 
gift of forbearance, we are surely out of place in the teacher's 
profession. Results come slowly ; habits of memory, dili- 
gence, apphcation, submission to constituted authority, are 
not easily acquired by children. We must be willing to help 
Nature and watch with patience for the gradual working out 
of the divinely ordained plan. Unkindness breeds unkind- 
ness ; hasty temper in the master begets passion in the 
child. Every act of petulance on the teacher's part will 
have a formative influence on the pupil, and will be repro- 
duced a hundredfold in his tyraimy toward his inferiors, if 
not in his impudence to his superiors. Dr. Channing has 
said : " A boy compelled for six hours a day to see the 
countenance and hear the voice of a fretful, unkind, hard, or 
passionate man, is placed in a school of vice." 

3. Next in importance of these virtues stands that of en- 
thusiasm. Let me here quote the words of one of the most 
enthusiastic and successful men who has ever been in the 
ranks of the profession, gone now to his reward. A short 
time before his death, Paul A. Chadbourne said : " Without 
enthusiasm no teacher can have the best success, however 
learned and faithful and hard-working he may be. Enthusi- 
asm is the heat that softens the iron so that every blow may 
tell. Enthusiasm on the part of the teacher gives life to the 
student, and an impulse to every mental power. When this 
is accomplished there is no more waste in lifting, dragging, or 
driving." I can imagine your saying, " Enthusiasm over 
h-a-t hat ; over the rule of three ; enthusiasm over monthly 
reports and examination papers ! " The greater the drudgery, 
the greater the necessity of that for which I plead. Nothing 
less than enthusiasm can supply the energy that accomplishes 
success. If you would arouse the dormant mind of a pupil, 



I04 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

you must be awake ; if you would kindle a flame in his 
breast, you must be on fire yourself. No house was ever 
warmed by a gilded ball or a painted screen. The great 
teachers of the earth have been enthusiasts, — Socrates, who 
went barefoot and subsisted on a crust that he might teach, 
his disciple Plato, Jesus, the great teacher of mankind, 
Abelard, Erasmus, Colet, and Neander. Need I mention in 
our own day the wonderful Agassiz, or the eminent Draper, — 
men whose enthusiasm was chilled only by the cold hand of 
death? Energy that gives power to the arm, steadiness to 
the hand, balance to the brain, force to every act, is the 
teacher's essential and fundamental quality. 

It is proper here to speak of one thing which I have some- 
times feared we may forget in our zeal for new methods and 
frequent boastings of the great advances recently made in 
education. There is no method, however excellent, that 
does not need an occasional modification, no rule which 
does not need frequently new statement and fresh spirit in 
its application. Over and over again in the history of the 
world has it happened that a protest against formalism and 
conservatism has come to have its own watchword and pecu- 
liar usages, until the reform has grown as formal, as spiritually 
dead as that against which it protested. The method which 
to-day is novel and bright and helpful, tends to become a 
mere rule of action ; from this results routine which is always 
easier than intelligence, — and the routine of the traditional 
methods and of the conservative class is not one whit worse 
than that of a method first created in the brain of an enthusi- 
ast and set to some positive rule that it may be imparted to, 
and adopted by, the plodding and uninspired folk who think 
that they may learn any method as they would learn to oper- 
ate a telegraph key. For the living enthusiastic teacher it is 



THE TEACHER. 



105 



an impossibility that the formulas of the normal school or 
the institute should be more than a spur to further acquire- 
ment and an incentive to greater exertion, but it is quite 
probable, nay more, it is unavoidable, that to the dull and 
unambitious those very rules should become a hindrance, a 
dead hand on all his work. The real teacher will succeed in 
the school-room of the last generation, with its whittled 
benches, its high windows, its red-hot box-stove, its fifty or 
sixty pupils of ages ranging from five to twenty-five years ; 
while the dilettante, the mere learner of rules, will fail in the 
best appointed room of our modern school-house. A {Q\'i 
years since Mr. Garfield gave utterance in Washington to the 
following : " If I could be taken back into boyhood to-day, 
and had all the libraries and apparatus of a university with 
ordinary routine professors offered me on the one hand, and 
on the other a great, luminous, rich-souled man such as 
Dr. Hopkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods, 
alone, I should say give me Dr. Hopkins for my college 
course. The privilege of sitting down before a great, clear- 
headed, and large-hearted man, and breathing the atmosphere 
of his hfe, and being drawn up to him and lifted up by him, 
and learning his methods of thinking and living, is in itself 
an enormous educating power." 

After all what is the end of education and of the educator's 
work? 

Says the eminent Frenchman, Rousseau : " What does it 
matter to me whether my son is destined to the sword, to the 
Church, to the bar? Before the guidance of the parents, 
Nature calls him to human life. To live is the trade I wish 
him to learn." " Non sibi, sed toti." 

The greatest Teacher of the ages proclaimed the purpose 
of his work by saying : " I am come that they might have 



106 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

life and have it more abundantly ; " and this should be the 
aim of every one who attempts to instruct the young. Our 
business is to give a richer life to the generation of pupils 
under us. As it is a grand work, it demands grand qualifica- 
tions. Not the least of these are the moral. The teacher 
must become in some way an incarnation of the great prin- 
ciples of living taught and exemplified by Him whose words 
I have just quoted. Science and art are less than character. 
He is weak and inefficient in the school-room whose daily 
struggle is not toward a higher plane of living. The schol- 
arly attainments of our ideal teacher must be exceeded by 
his comprehension of the highest truth, his worldly wisdom 
by his knowledge of the beautiful, his mental excellence by 
his moral goodness. 

From the far East and the olden time come these wise 
words : " The good teacher must resemble the earth in four 
particulars. The terrestrial globe is vast and of bulk un- 
known, — so must his love be. The earth is strong, shrinks 
from no weight, and carries its burdens buoyantly, — so must 
he be. The earth is patient : whether birds peck it, or 
moles bore it, or hoe smite it, or the plow tear it, it beareth 
all, — so must he endure the diversified provocations which 
his pupils may bring to bear upon it. The earth is fertile 
and yields to the tiller according to his work, — so must he 
yield in exact proportion to the capacity and extractive 
energies of his scholars." 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND G'lTIZENSHIR 

ONE hundred years ago John Adams said, "The instruc- 
tion of the people in every kind of knowledge that 
can be of use to them in the practice of their moral duties as 
men, citizens, and Christians, and of their political and civil 
duties as members of society and freemen, ought to be the 
care of the public, and of all who have any share in the 
conduct of its affairs." 

It is the business of the school to teach methods of think- 
ing, and doctrines which may direct one in all the affairs of 
life, especially to train individuals to be good members of 
the Commonwealth. 

The school is a State institution established in accordance 
with the principles of democratic government ; a legitimate 
and highly prized means to the accomplishment of the 
chief purpose of all democracy, — a government of the 
people by the people. 

The school being a public institution, the government has 
the undoubted right to demand from it certain definite re- 
sults in the way of training for the duties of citizenship. 

What makes a good citizen ? 

I . Obedience, — that spirit which teaches and enforces 
submission to constituted authority, which abides by the 
decisions of lawful arbiters, even when such yielding causes 
inconvenience or serious loss. 



I08 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

2. Respect for honest toil. A belief that not the work 
but the manner of it brings disgrace or honor. 

3. Honesty of purpose, of act, not of speech alone. Of 
tliought and life as well ; what is known sometimes as a 
moral sense. 

4. A sufficient knowledge of books to enable the voter to 
read his ballot, and so to cast it with some intelligence. 

5. A knowledge of our government, its history, and its 
possibilities. 

6. Such economy as will aid him to live comfortably 
within his means, whether he be a millionnaire, banker, or 
day-laborer. 

7. The true nobility of man. The thought of Browning 
should be bred into the very life of every public school 

pupil : — 

" A man for aye removed 
From the developed brute, — 
A God, though in the germ." 

I. Do we see a generation of boys and girls who do not 
know the meaning of that old word " obey " ? Upon this as 
a foundation-stone has been laid the greatness of many 
empires, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe that 
upon no other foundation can the structure of successful 
government be reared. 

Children come to school with little idea of obedience. 
Sentiment, or some worse thing, has taken the backbone out 
of parental authority, and the child is overwhelmed with 
astonishment to find that in the school-room all wills must 
be, in a large part, under the domination of one controlling 
will. The primary educational purpose of school-room gov- 
ernment is to make the pupil self-governing. This is most 
clearly apparent to the boy when he reaches the high school. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSHIP. 



109 



There he finds that the strict rules of action to which he has 
been accustomed in the lower grades give place to a broad 
rule of quiet attention to one's own business and an insist- 
ance upon the right of every pupil to be left free to 
work unmolested by mischief, and undisturbed by noise of 
whispering or play. Obedience to this broad rule must 
be insisted upon with an unflinching firmness. Every day 
and hour of the school course should be a protest against 
the lawlessness that destroys the comfort of many homes, 
and that leads logically to license and anarchy. 

Self-restraint breeds self-respect. The completion of the 
course should bring to the day of graduation a young man 
trained by habitual self-restraint for the sake of others as 
well as himself. Such a one will give ready obedience to 
constituted authority, and be quick to defend the State 
against the aggressions of lawless violence, 

2. Said Mr. Lowell, in his admirable address at the Har- 
vard anniversary two years ago, " The motto ' Christo et 
Ecclesiae,' wlien rightly interpreted, is the same as a ' Veritas ; ' 
for it means that we are to elevate ourselves to the high- 
est conception we have of truth, and to the preaching 
of it." 

Not science for its facts, literature for its forcefulness, art 
for its beauty, — are the true end of a school course ; but 
truth for its own sake, " that we may devote ourselves to 
the highest conception we have of it." 

Any clever boy or girl can learn more in a month out of a 
good encyclopedia about government, civil polity, legal 
rights and privileges of a citizen, as well as more about the 
theory of a dozen other things, than he will get from a 
four years' course in the best school in the land ; but he 
won't learn much that ought to go with it. Honesty of 



no APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

purpose, unselfishness, sincerity, — all that is comprehended 
in the broadest meaning of the word " truth." 

Arnold's first act when, as a young man, he took charge of 
Rugby, was to lay down one only rule, " Be earnest." His 
last words to his boys on that beautiful summer's day when 
England's sons came down to the school to do him honor at 
the end of his twenty years' service, were, " Be manly. Be 
sensible. In every point of honor, nice." 

When the record of the nineteenth century is closed, 
above the names of England's statesmen, priests, and 
scholars shall be written, " Thomas Arnold." His pure, 
manly, true life has become a part of Britain's crown of 
glory, to be perpetuated through all those who sat under 
Arnold's teaching. " It matters little what you learn ; the 
question is with whom you learn," said Mr. Emerson, mean- 
ing thereby that books are of little worth compared with 
the higher moral forces of truth and virtue, which can be 
drawn only from the man or woman of generous sympathy 
and spotless life. 

3. It is the business of the school by precept and exam- 
ple to magnify honest work. It is occasionally charged 
against education that it operates to make the boy disinclined 
to manual employment, as beneath the dignity of the would- 
be gentleman. It is likely that the introduction of manual 
instruction, which is becoming so general, will tend to make 
this charge untrue even if it were not so before. It is 
noticeable that this complaint has not been made chiefly 
by the laboring people, but by their more aristocratic 
neighbors. 

A short time since a series of eight questions was sub- 
mitted by the United States Bureau of Education to promi- 
nent manufacturers and to leaders of the labor movement. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSHIP. I I I 

One of the questions was : " What do you regard as the 
effect of mental culture upon the personal and social habits 
of persons who have been in your employ ? Do they, as a 
class, live in better houses or with better surroundings? 
Are they more or less idle and dissipated than the untaught 
classes? How will they compare for character, for economy, 
morality, and social influence, with their fellows?" 

To this Mr. S. P. Cummings, of Boston, Massachusetts, 
Secretary of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of the Order of 
St. Crispin, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the In- 
ternational Labor Union and of the State Labor party, replied : 
" Inventive culture, as a rule, increases the self-respect and 
improves the social habits of working men. Educated work 
ing men live in better houses, have better surroundings, and 
are in all respects superior to those whose education is 
limited and defective. They are less idle and dissipated 
than the untaught classes. As regards economy, morality, 
and social influence, educated laborers are pre-eminent 
among their fellows. I may add one general observation, 
that while I was foreman of a shoe factory employing forty 
hands, I always got better work, had less trouble, and, as a 
general rule, paid better wages to the more intelligent work- 
men. The more ignorant hands were continually giving me 
trouble, either by slighting their work or failing to appear in 
a fit condition to work after pay-day. They were, many of 
them, coarse and vulgar, drank liquor, grumbled, and were 
in all respects disagreeable. I am so well satisfied with the 
inestimable value of education to the laborer that I would 
make it compulsory. No man should be allowed to go into 
the arena of life until he has at least a decent English 
education." 

The discipline of school energizes the whole mental na- 



112 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

ture, making it capable of applying itself in various direc- 
tions. Whatever becomes of the facts it has learned, the 
mind does not soon, perhaps never, lose the new life of 
perceptive and reasoning powers which had its genesis in 
the school-room. Applied to what you will, this power 
brightens the eye, strengthens the arm, guides the hand to 
a wiser use of tools and materials than before. The work, 
be it never so lowly, is exalted, sometimes glorified by a 
comprehension of its relations and services to other depart- 
ments of toil. 

Four years ago, inquiry among the high schools of Massa- 
chusetts showed that pupils upon graduation entered at once 
into the ordinary avocations of the communities in which 
they lived. In commercial centres, they went into the banks, 
stores, and offices ; in manufacturing towns, they also took 
places in the mills, " doing work requiring," so says the 
report, " a higher degree of intelligence." The report con- 
tinues : " That they do not gravitate in large numbers to- 
ward the less remunerative kinds of manual labor is 
doubtless true. That the children of parents employed in 
such labor aspire to cleaner hands and better clothes is 
perhaps true. The parents aspire for them, and make sacri- 
fices to send them to the high school that they may not be 
mere drudges." 

Sometimes a boy fresh from the high school thinks certain 
labor menial and unworthy his talents. Either he has been 
badly taught, filled with false, pernicious views of life's great 
business, or he really feels within him the possibilities of 
more skilful service than digging ditches. 

Shame and disgrace be upon that school or that teacher 
who makes a pupil feel that humble service is not his 
noblest duty ; equal shame upon him who teaches not that 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSIHP. I I 3 

within each lies the possibihties of greatest achievement in 
the fine or mechanical arts. 

4. Extravagance is characteristic of this generation. 
Money easily got is easily spent. Boys and girls who do 
not know by actual experience the worth of a dollar can 
hardly be taught it as they are taught a principle in physics. 
And yet an effort must be made to accomplish this, else the 
spirit of extravagance in expenditure will bring about its 
legitimate result, — recklessness in the assumption of pecu- 
niary obligations, carelessness in their hquidation, and final 
bankruptcy. 

To teach economy, not for the sake of the money, but for 
the money's better value, not for coats, and gowns, and 
clubs, and plays, but for the highest needs of the soul's 
poverty, and for the material needs of our bodies and of 
God's poor whom we always have with us ; to value gold, 
not for itself or position or sensuous pleasure, but for its 
power to bring us a better good of literature and art, for its 
power to add to the material comfort of the world around, 
to build roads and bridges and factories, and above all, for 
its ability to increase man's spiritual well-being by schools 
and churches and libraries, — to do all this is not only a 
lawful ambition, but the bounden duty of a school main- 
tained by public tax for the public good. Simple tastes, 
contentment, frugality, are prime virtues and should hold a 
prominent place in the institution. 

5. In nothing is the evolution of public sentiment as to 
public schools more manifest than in the continually widen- 
ing reach and number of studies in the curriculum. The 
three "R's" are and ever must be the basis of work; to 
these have been added history, geography, language, the 
elements of the natural sciences, something of higher mathe- 

8 



114 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

matics and foreign languages. It is sometimes said that 
this evolution has over-reached the proper function of the 
school. Let us see. Never was the pressure stronger upon 
the schools for a practical education ; constantly shifts the 
ground of attack, the cry remains the same, " Give us the 
practical." Reading, giving the ability to get the sense from 
a page of manuscript or book ; writing, giving the ability to 
express one's thoughts for the perusal of others ; and arith- 
metic, giving the ability to reckon or compute with numbers, 
— are on all sides acknowledged to be essentials. But one 
cannot express himself with credit or clearness who has no 
knowledge of the structure or skill in the use of his mother 
tongue. This can be acquired only from exercise and dis- 
cipline such as the boy gets from the accurate study of his 
own and other languages in the school-room. 

Again, we live in a day when hand labor has given place 
to steam and electric power controlled by the wise and 
carefully trained brain. It becomes therefore the business 
of the educator to introduce his pupils into those domains of 
Nature with whose products or powers they may be called 
upon to deal. 

Physics, chemistry, and physiology touch upon the most 
important and practical affairs of every-day life in the 
manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and bodily health. He 
would be a bold man who should deny that that boy will 
make a better citizen and more useful member of the com- 
munity, who knows something of the physical geography and 
climatic condition of his own country, who has a few defi- 
nite ideas of the political and physical divisions of other 
countries, and above all, who has learned lessons of public 
policy and personal propriety by familiarity with the biogra- 
phy of great men and nations. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSHIP. I I 5 

Not facts make a man wise, much less useful. The public 
school should give that discipline of mind which enables the 
man to grasp new ideas, and properly judge their relations 
to the past and their probable influence on the future. No 
system of education which results in this is useless. Every 
system which does this, or even honestly attempts it, is a 
proper object of support by public tax in any free govern- 
ment whose first instinct is self-preservation. 

6. Of late a new word has been introduced to the public, 
— " Civics." It is found printed in courses of study ; it 
may be seen in the professional journals ; it has forced its 
way before the public through the " American Institute of 
Civics," — a society that is doing a good work in the propaga- 
tion of knowledge about its purposes and methods. As the 
word is new, though standing for an old idea, it may be well 
to define " civics." It is understood to be the science which 
treats of government, its origin and development, its func- 
tions, its conduct and principles of action. The study of 
civics thus includes a study of the Constitution, — its creation 
and development, — the political history of the country, 
political economy in its usual signification, and in its wider 
application to all relations of the citizen with the State. 
Every American should hail with delight the renewed in- 
terest daily manifested in these studies and the general 
incorporation of them into the curriculum of the public 
school. 

When one stops to question himself on the single subject 
of the extent of the power of the federal government over 
state legislation, he is surprised at the smallness and indefi- 
niteness of his knowledge. Leaving out of account the 
members of the two professions, — law and teaching, — I 
venture that two-thirds of those who read this article will 



Il6 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

give an unqualified negative to a number of such questions 
as these : May any state abolish the grand jury system ? 
The federal Constitution declares that, " No person shall be 
held to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crime unless 
on a presentment or mdictment of a grand jury." [Amend- 
ment, article v.J Yet any state may, as one already has 
done, abolish the grand jury system. 

The Constitution of Wisconsin, as amended November i8, 
1870, reads, section vii. art. i : " No person shall be held 
to answer for a criminal offence without due process of law." 
" Due process of law " means in Wisconsin, either a prelim- 
inary examination before a justice of the peace, or informa- 
tion given in due form to the district attorney. A dozen 
similar questions might be asked, to every one of which most 
people would say, "No;" yet a careful study of our polity, 
as outlined in the Constitution, would show the only possibly 
correct answer to be, " Yes." These questions may become, 
as one of them did in the late Chicago anarchist trial, of 
vital importance to the public welfare. In such case, it is 
proper that every citizen should have certain knowledge of 
the correct answers. 

Let us illustrate this point by two other instances greatly 
affecting public policy, questions which are being very gen- 
erally discussed at the present time. What is the relation 
between the right of suffrage and citizenship? At first 
thought one would answer, "Citizenship carries with it the 
right to vote, and no one can vote who is not a citizen." 
Yet second thought shows that every State in the Union has, 
for purposes of general elections, disfranchised half its 
citizens above twenty-one years of age, and several other 
States insist that citizens shall have certain educational or 
property qualifications before they can vote. Besides this. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSTHP. ny 

fifteen states grant suffrage to those who are neither citizens 
of the state nor of the United States. 

On the all-absorbing topics about which every one except 
the professional politician is eager both to inform and ex- 
press his mind, protective tariff and free trade, the differences 
of opinion are so conflicting as to force me to the conclusion 
that one must be right and the other wrong, both in morals 
and policy ; and yet I more than suspect that the majority of 
those holding either view do so from motives of selfish in- 
terest, or the hardly less reprehensible principle of mere 
sentiment. 

The above illustrations are sufficient to show a cliaotic 
condition of mixed knowledge and ignorance on matters of 
which this new old science, civics, treats. 

Consider that every ballot cast at the polls for an executive 
or legislative ofificer has its influence in determining the 
policy of the local, state, or federal government on some of 
these questions, or others similar in character and of hardly 
less importance. Then consider the need of an intelligent 
brain to guide the hand that casts the ballot. Then we shall 
impress upon ourselves, and urge upon school authorities, the 
necessity of proper teaching in the school. 

So far I have considered questions of long standing in- 
terest. Turn now to the two problems of the future, — the 
labor movement, so called, and its near ally, socialism. 
L?.bor organizations have assumed the right, as they have 
the power, to dictate terms to their employers. They de- 
mand, for instance, an increase of wages. The manufacturer 
cannot afford to give a larger percentage of his gross gains 
to the laborer ; competition allows him now but small re- 
turns on his investment ; on the other hand he cannot 
afford to shut down his works and allow a plant costing 



I 1 8 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

thousands of dollars to stand idle ; and besides if he closes 
his doors, he incurs danger to life and property from the 
attacks of brutal men, rendered furious by poverty and 
threatening starvation. 

Not only does the labor union dictate financial terms, 
which perhaps is their right, but it says to the capitalist, 
" You shall not employ this man ; he is not a member of our 
league, or order. We will not work under John Smith as 
foreman, or boss ; he discharged such a man and we will 
no longer serve under him." No matter how competent 
John Smith is, he must step down and out, to give place, 
perhaps, to a lazy, stupid, and dishonest man, acceptable to 
the union, or the employer will find himself some bright 
morning without a workman in his shop. Supposing the 
laborers make a demand for higher pay at just the time when 
the capitalist can well afford to close his factory or mills, 
then the workmen find themselves face to face with the 
terrible struggle with poverty, — a poverty made worse by the 
bitter cold of a Northern winter. The result is the agony 
of disrupted and starving families, crime, and the disgrace 
of the penitentiary. 

These questions are daily growing in importance ; labor 
and capital have each its rights. What are they, and how 
to be adjusted when they are in conflict? Is it not the 
province of the public school to afford by instruction in the 
fundamental principles of political economy, and in the 
higher principles of an altruistic morality, a solution of some 
of these difficulties? The common school should send out 
laborers and capitalists who can examine and adjudge these 
difficulties by the clear light of truth, undimmed by inherited 
prejudice or passion. 

We are rapidly being pushed to an answer to the social- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSHIP. \ \ 9 

istic problem of paternal government. Already socialism 
has gained strong hold upon our legislation. In 1787 the 
first session of Congress under our present Constitution 
passed a high tariff bill " to afford protection to home in- 
dustries." Paternalism began then in state laws attempting 
to regulate the price of labor, the care of the poor, and many 
others of a like sort \ the paternal theory of government is 
supreme. The Granger movement of 1872, the Inter-State 
Commerce Law of 1887, the much-debated bill for govern- 
mental aid to education in the South, the proposition that 
government shall assume control of telegraph and railroad 
systems, are only a few of the many instances of the paternal 
idea carried on toward its legitimate results. So socialism 
grows, is embodied, not only in federal and state legislation, 
but in state organic law, and for answer to the question, 
" Where will it end? " we must look to the future voters now 
being educated in our public schools. If socialism is to be 
accepted as a rule in government, we need to understand it 
in its relations. If it is to be rejected, though I hardly see 
now how it can be, let us be able to give a reason for our 
acts. 

We have touched upon the realm of economics. Our 
boys and girls need lessons here. Industrial life as pre- 
sented to them is largely selfish, a question of gain or loss, a 
scramble for money. Political economy if wisely taught may 
turn the learner's mind from mere gain to use. 

" I like to define political economy as the science of ser- 
vices," says some one. Swedenborg says somewhere, " The 
kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of uses." 

Surely it is a high honor to so teach the young that they 
may acquire the habit of unselfish service, that they may 
look upon our social system as one to be maintained only 



I20 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

by the mutual interchange of service. When they learn to 
give the best services without always hope of equal service 
in return, they will have helped to bring about here on earth 
that glorious " kingdom of uses," which is, if Swedenborg 
be right, the very kingdom of heaven. 

Here we have a work for the public high school. Its in- 
fluence upon the community is enormous ; its graduates go 
out to take the lead in the market, the legislature, the 
church. Its training, broadening every year, qualifies those 
who receive it for positions of influence. Its boys become 
in a short time the acknowledged leaders in local politics, 
and later in a wider political field. Its girls make up a large 
part of the teachers in the lower grades of the common 
school. Its teachings will be repeated and enforced through 
the busy life of its one-time pupils. 

It is then necessary that its curriculum should include a 
course of study and reading in our federal and state con- 
stitution, in the political history of our people, in the 
elements of what is known as political economy. 

American institutions, and their powers to Americanize 
those who come imder their influence, are the safeguard of 
this nation from the dangers of an ignorant foreign emigra- 
tion. Among the first of these institutions, perhaps the very 
foremost, is the public school. The community of interests, 
caused by a common work under a discipline impartially 
enforced, fuses heterogeneous elements into a homogeneous 
mass. In the school, the child of European monarchy learns 
the equality of a democratic people ; he learns to look first 
with reverence, then with pride, upon our national heroes ; 
he sings, and comes to love our national songs ; he is in- 
spired by our patriotic poetry and oratory, — and in a few 
short years is raised from the condition of an alien, and is 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND CITIZENSHIP. 121 

fitted to take upon himself the duties and enjoy the privileges 
of an American. Not alone upon the foreigner, but on our 
own children, does the school bring to bear its influence while 
performing its functions to the State. 

Hereby the teacher's work is ennobled. There is a higher 
ambition than simply giving facts. It becomes the teacher's 
rare privilege to raise up for his country, defenders, for his 
nation, citizens. Training children for the republic requires 
something more than a course in civics. It includes a com- 
prehension of man's nature and existence, the constitution 
of society, the duties of man toward man, and of man toward 
God. 

In the travail of our nation this utterance burst forth : 
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, — that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." That sentence forever 
makes the American a man subservient to none, equal to 
all. Upon this foundation principle of a free government 
we look with pride. To have given this doctrine to the 
world, and to uphold it with proud simplicity, not in arro- 
gant conceit, is better far than to develop even our unparal- 
leled material resources or to display our marvellous ingenuity 
and enterprise. 

The greatest service the school can perform for the State is 
to train character that shall endure the test of the fierce struggle 
for pelf, the temptation to extravagance and peculation. 

As upon the morning twilight of the heathen struggling 
after truth rose the beauteous light of the Prince of Peace, 
so upon this nation's history, stained by blot of private fraud 
and official corruption, rises the possibility that our children 
shall learn the simple dignity of worthy manhood. 



122 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

Of all created things man nearest approaches God. The 
divine-human child must be developed to the divine-human 
man, must be taught to recognize that part in himself and in 
others, to love the pure because it is pure, the good and true 
because they are true and good. When he learns to love 
man for the God in him, then he will see clearly the solution 
of these perplexing problems of personal responsibility and 
public policy which will daily demand his attention. When 
the public school gives its pupils the lessons of a rich, pure, 
and noble life, then it will give to the State intelligent and 
useful citizens, and then and not till then will the public 
school be performing its whole duty. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 

THE Treaty of Paris, 1 763, determined whether posses- 
sion of the fair country west of the Alleghanies, reach- 
ing from the Mexican Gulf to Hudson's Bay, should be under 
the control of England or of France. Before the Treaty, this 
imperial territory — now known as the West — was French ; 
after the Treaty, English. The French had explored and 
hithei-to had held it with no one to dispute their right. No 
record of adventure can be more absorbing in interest, or 
more inspiring to unselfish devotion, than the story of the 
early French explorers and missionaries in the Mississippi 
Valley. So long as civilization shall endure, men shall speak 
with admiration the name of La Salle, and with reverence 
that of Marquette. 

The civilization brought and planted by these men and 
their fellows was marked by ignorance, superstition, sub- 
servience to authority, mediseval vassalage and its attendant 
evils, — a system utterly at variance with the coming democ- 
racy of America ; at variance with the spirit of liberty, revolt 
from feudalism, and intellectual regeneration, which in 
Europe marked the close of the eighteenth century. 

The French and Indian war, which in America was 
a dispute for territorial possession, may also be consid- 
ered a contest between American progress and European 
conservatism. 

At the war's beginning France stretched from Quebec to 
New Orleans. From the mouth of the St. Lawrence through 



124 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

the great Lakes, across a narrow portage in Wisconsin or 
Illinois, down the Mississippi River to the Gulf, three thou- 
sand miles of almost unbroken waterway her boats could go, 
and pass no shore on which the missionaries of the Roman 
Church had not set the cross, and over which I^ouis did not 
exercise a nominal control. 

Great Britain's possessions were confined between the 
Alleghanies and the sea, bounded on the north by the St. 
Lawrence Valley, and on the south by the Altamaha, a small 
stream of Southern Georgia. Ticonderoga, Montreal, Que- 
bec, Detroit, Niagara, Fort DuQuesne, — now Pittsburg, — 
all belonged to France. These and other posts formed a 
cordon around the English, reaching in a somewhat broken 
line from the North Atlantic to the Gulf. Hedged in by 
these posts, and by a people who were able and not seldom 
ready to lead against them the howling savages, the English 
colonists were debarred from the conquest of the wilderness. 
A wilderness this region would have remained, unless at- 
tacked by the fearless energy of the Saxon race that has 
always found delight in the subjugation and development of 
a new country. 

At the close of the French and Indian war the political 
geography was entirely changed. England's territory reached 
to the Mississippi. France had yielded to her conqueror 
and hereditary foe the country east of that river, all of the 
St. Lawrence Basin, and to Hudson's Bay ; while Spain gave 
up to England the two Floridas, and received in payment 
therefor, at the expense of France, the immense territory, 
whose resources we hardly yet comprehend, known as 
Louisiana. 

The question of political control settled, there were in this 
valley two people now brought face to face in a short and 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



125 



swift struggle for moral supremacy, — the French and Ameri- 
cans. The French had become lazy, and had so far cultivated 
the Indians that they had almost sunk to the level of the 
savages, for whom they professed so brotherly an affection. 
In all the region between the Lakes and the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi Rivers, they numbered hardly ten thousand, — weak 
and helpless beings, though living in the very garden of the 
earth. 

Across the Alleghanies, toward the east, were the Ameri- 
cans who had cultivated the barren soil and learned thence 
lessons of frugality, manhood, and courage, and so had be- 
come more than a million strong and vigorous people. 

It will easily be seen then that the Treaty of Paris did 
more than change geography. It determined the destiny of 
America. It made possible the war of the American Revo- 
lution. It gave room for development to freedom and 
individual rights, to that spirit which found utterance in the 
opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence, and 
in the Emancipation Proclamation, — a spirit that shall find 
its realization when from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from 
the wheat fields of the North to the cotton plantations of the 
South, every act of ruler and of ruled shall exemplify the 
brotherhood of man. 

Great Britain had now three dependencies beside the 
thirteen American colonies. These were East and West 
Florida, and Quebec. The last included that portion of 
Canada to the east of Lake Nipissing, a small lake lying 
northeast of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. Over the 
country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and the 
great Lakes and parallel 31° north latitude, or the northern 
boundary of the Floridas, no government was established. 
In the eyes of the law there were no white settlers there. 



126 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

This country was left to the wild Red Man. The only gov- 
ernmental functions exercised were those without the sanc- 
tion of law and of a semi-military nature. The old French 
law, so far as enforced, was in the hands of lieutenants who 
acted as justices of the peace, and sergeants who acted as 
constables. The French "habitants" were little disturbed 
by this state of affairs, but to the enterprising colonists it was 
a more serious matter. 

By the same order that established the boundaries of the 
other provinces, this region was closed against colonization. 
In the order of council, dated October 7, 1 763, we read : 

" And whereas, it is just and reasonable, and essential to 
our interest and to the security of our colonies, that the 
several nations or tribes of Indians with whom we are con- 
nected and who live under our protection should not be 
molested or disturbed in the possession of such parts of our 
dominion and territories as, not having been ceded to, or 
purchased by us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as 
their hunting-grounds, we do therefore, with the advice of 
our privy council, declare it to be our royal will and pleasure 
that no governor or commander-in-chief in any of our colo- 
nies of Quebec, East Florida, or West Florida do presume, 
upon any pretence whatever, to grant warrants of survey or 
pass any patents for lands beyond the bounds of their 
respective governments, as described in their commissions. 
. . . And we do hereby strictly forbid, on pain of our dis- 
pleasure, all our loving subjects from making any purchases 
or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the 
lands above reserved without our special leave and license 
for that purpose, first obtained. And we do further strictly 
enjoin and require all persons whatever, who have either 
wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any lands 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



127 



within the countries above described, or upon any other 
lands which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by us, 
are still reserved to the said Indians as aforesaid, forthwith 
to remove themselves from such settlements." 

Three reasons are suggested for this order, — First, there 
was the desire to conciHate the Indians, who had hitherto 
sided with the French, by assuring them undisturbed pos- 
session of their hunting-grounds. There may too have been 
in part the intention to protect his Majesty's " loving sub- 
jects " from attacks by the savage tribes. But it would ap- 
pear that the principal purpose of the order was to prevent 
the growth of the colonies. Their power, displayed in the 
war just closed, had surprised the home government and 
given it a feeling of uneasiness lest the child should soon 
grow so strong that it might with safety start in life for itself. 
Many of the charters originally given to the colonies con- 
tained a grant of land " from sea to sea," and it now, for 
the first time, seemed possible that the colonists might rise 
and possess their heritage. 

The continued presence of the French inhabitants in this 
territory now left without a government was of course a 
violation of the law, which was, however, winked at by 
those in authority. But the order was occasionally broken 
in a more active way, both with and without the knowledge 
or consent of crown officers. So far was this true that on 
the eve of the Revolution, Burke, standing in the English 
House of Commons, said : " Already they have topped the 
Appalachian mountains. From thence they behold before 
them an immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow, — a 
square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander 
without a possibility of restraint." 

In 1765, at the close of the Pontiac war, the French flag 



128 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

was lowered and the English raised over Fort Chartre. 
Endand had crushed France. France had left the Indians 

O 

to irretrievable ruin by the tumultuous force of an onsweeping 
emigration. The order of 1763 failed of its purpose, but 
just before the words of Burke, quoted above, were uttered, 
England made one more attempt to drive back the increas- 
ing tide of emigration. By the " Quebec Act," in 1774? all 
the old French Territory, south to the Ohio River, was made a 
part of the Province of Quebec. The old " Re'gime" — that 
is, the system of government brought from France, but now 
under English control — was restored. Representative gov- 
ernment was abolished ; trial by jury was done away with ; 
French laws were reordained ; the extraordinary grant of 
power to the Roman Church was reconfirmed ; and again the 
capital of the Mississippi Valley was located in the St. 
Lawrence basin. The end attained by this Act was such a 
separation of the East from the West that the one should be 
French, and by feelings of gratitude allied to ruling Eng- 
land ; while the other was thus to be thwarted in its plans 
for aggrandizement and self-government. Thus did mother 
England in a short-sighted policy attempt to dwarf the 
growth of the American nation. 

We think of the Revolution as a war fought on the 
Atlantic slope, and for a country bounded by the Eastern 
watershed. Had that been all, think how meagre the re- 
sults of seven years of bloodshed, seven years of agony ! 
Think liow impossible a great people, how impossible our 
expansion, how nearly impossible our national existence ! 

Perhaps it is not exaggeration to say that upon the char- 
acter of one man, and the success of one undertaking, 
depended the future greatness of the West. That man was 
George Rogers Clark ; his undertaking, an expedition from 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. I 29 

Virginia into the Illinois country against the little French 
towns of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, then held by 
the British. "This was an enterprise," says Bancroft, 
" which for the valor of the actors, their fidelity to one 
another, the seeming feebleness of their means, and the great 
result of their hardihood remains forever memorable in the 
history of the world." 

Thirty days before the Declaration of Independence was 
promulgated, the settlers west of the mountains and south of 
the Ohio, in a meeting at Harrodsburg, elected George 
Rogers Clark and Gabriel Jones delegates to the Virginia 
Assembly, then in session in Williamsburg. These men were 
instructed to ask Virginia to assert its claim to Kentucky, 
and to make it a county of the Commonwealth. After a 
perilous journey through the wilderness, Clark and Jones 
arrived at the State capital only to find American Independ- 
ence declared, and the legislature adjourned. Jones went 
away on other business ; but Clark sought out the Governor, 
Patrick Henry, and secured from him a letter to the Council 
of State, favoring the petition of the Kentucky frontiersmen. 
Provided with this letter Clark returned to the capital and 
laid before the Council his modest request for five hundred 
pounds of gunpowder, to be used in the protection of their 
dependent territory. The Council refused to acknowledge 
the dependence of Kentuck)', but offered to loan Clark, on 
his personal guarantee, the powder for which he asked. 
This offer was rejected by Clark, who said, "If Kentucky is 
not worth defending, it is not worth claiming." Hereupon 
the Council gave an order for five hundred pounds of gun- 
powder to be delivered to Clark at Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg, 
and to be used under his direction for the defence of the 
frontier. The grant of powder evidently gave the Council 

9 



130 APPEND/X: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

more interest in the new settlement, for a {^vi months later 
the legislature created a new county under the name Ken- 
tucky, and Clark and Jones having accomplished their 
mission went home to their constituents, not forgetting to go 
by the way of Pittsburg and get the powder. 

During the next year Clark pondered over the possible 
conquest of the Illinois country. The British posts at 
Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit were the source of ma- 
rauding and murderous expeditions of Indians, who, ren- 
dered more savage by the inhuman policy of their British 
allies, often swept over the country in a whirlwind of desola- 
tion, murdering alike men, women, and children, burning 
and laying waste whatever the white settler had builded or 
sown. Could these posts be brought under American con- 
trol, Indian ravages would cease, peace come to the strug- 
gling pioneers, and a heavy blow be struck at the power 
against which the colonies were contending at terrible 
disadvantages. Clark was so far influenced by these con- 
siderations, that early in the summer of 1777, on his own 
resj)onsibility, he sent spies to the posts to learn the true 
state of affairs. The spies reported that the British were 
very active in promoting Indian raids against the Americans ; 
but they also reported that the inhabitants, and in some 
regions the Indians themselves, were favorably disposed 
toward the Americans. Convinced now of the necessity 
and feasibility of a successful attack on these posts, Clark, 
in mid-summer, went again to Virginia, and laid his plan 
before Governor Henry. Clark's purpose was warmly 
approved and arrangements were soon made. He re- 
ceived a commission as Lieutenant-Colonel from the Com- 
monwealth of Virginia, and the following instructions were 
issued : — 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 131 

LiEUT.-CoLONEL George ROGERS Clark, — You are to pro- 
ceed without loss of time to enlist seven companies of men, 
officered in the usual manner, to act as militia under your own 
orders ; they are to proceed to Kentucky, and there to obey such 
orders and directions as you shall give them for three months 
after their arrival at that place ; but to receive pay, etc., in case 
they remain on duty a longer time. 

Given under my hand at Williamsburg, January 2, 1778. 

P. Henry. 

This was little, but the same day other orders were issued 
bearing the mark, "private." Hereby Clark was authorized 
not only to raise troops, but to attack the British posts, to 
demand aid from the commandant at Fort Pitt, and most 
important, to keep his real purpose secret till time for final 
action. In the following passage from the secret orders, the 
humane spirit of the Virginia Executive is favorably con- 
trasted with the barbarity of Hamilton, the British Lieutenant- 
Governor stationed at Detroit : " It is earnestly desired that 
you show humanity to such British subjects and other per- 
sons as fall in your hands. If the white inhabitants at the 
coast and the neighborhood will give undoubted evidence of 
their attachment to this State (for it is certain they live within 
its limits) by taking the test prescribed by law, and by every 
other means in their power, let them be treated as fellow- 
citizens and their persons and property duly secured. 
Assistance and protection against all enemies whatever shall 
be afforded them, and the Commonwealth of Virginia is 
pledged to accomplish it. But if these people will not 
accede to these reasonable demands, they must be made 
to feel the miseries of war under the direction of that hu- 
manity which has hitherto distinguished Americans, and 
which it is expected you will consider as the rule of 



132 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

your conduct, and from which you are in no instance to 
depart." 

Two weeks later, — Bancroft is mistaken in saying two 
days, — Clark left Williamsburg, and after many discourage- 
ments in the enlistment of men, finally set sail down the 
river with one hundred and fifty followers. Their immediate 
destination was the Falls of the Ohio, opposite the site of 
Louisville. Here Clark hoped to meet Captain Smith with 
at least two hundred men. He was disappointed. Clark 
thought the reason of this failure lay in the machinations of 
many who, being personally hostile to him, went about dis- 
suading men from enUsting under him. The true reason 
was perhaps that they did not care to enlist in any service 
the real purpose of which was unknown. Back of this rea- 
son, or that assigned by Clark, was a prevailing indifference 
on the part of isolated frontiersmen to general or national 
interests, caused not so much by a lack of patriotism as by 
the stern necessity of daily provision for the support and 
protection of their families and firesides. 

On Corn Island, then, at the Falls of the Ohio, the small 
force, not more than two hundred in all, was rested and 
drilled. Here the object of the expedition was disclosed. 
Whereupon one company, having no stomach for untried 
perils, ingloriously deserted ; some got away ; some were 
caught, brought back, and compelled to serve. 

On June 26, 1778, the small but brave and hardy band of 
one hundred and seventy men left the Island and rowed 
down to Old Fort Massac, forty miles from the river's 
mouth ; here they concealed their boats and began a march 
of one hundred miles across the country to Kaskaskia. When 
half the distance was covered, the guide lost his way in the 
level "meadow," as Clark calls it. Says Clark: "I could 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. I 33 

not bear the thoughts of returning ; in short every idea of 
the sort put me in that passion that I did not master it for 
some time ; but in a short time after our circumstances had 
a better appearance, for I was in a moment determined to 
put the guide to death if he did not find his way that even- 
ing. I told him his doom ; the poor fellow, scared almost 
out of his wits, begged that I would stay awhile where I was 
and suffer him to go and make some discovery of a road 
that could not be far from us, which I would not suffer him 
to do for fear of not seeing him again, but ordered him to 
lead on the party, that his fate depended upon his success ; 
after some little pause he begged that I would not be hard 
with him, that he could find the path that evening. He 
accordingly took his course and within two hours got within 
his knowledge." 

On the evening of July 4th this small party came within 
sight of Kaskaskia, — the goal of its journey. How to cross 
the river which ran between them and the town, and how to 
do this and not arouse the inhabitants, were the questions. 
Some of the older accounts have asserted that there was a 
fort named Fort Gage on the east side of the river, and that 
Clark divided his force into three companies, keeping one 
on the east bank to take and occupy the fort, while the 
other two crossed the river and attacked the town. Clark's 
own record shows nothing of this ; and Dr. W. F. Poole in 
his recently published papers proves, as it seems to me, that 
there was then no such fort on the bluffs opposite the town. 

In a letter dated June 27, 1779, nearly a year after the 
capture by Clark, Major de Peyster says to General Haldi- 
mand : " The Kaskaskias is no ways fortified. The fort is 
still a sorry pinchetted enclosure round the Jesuits' Colledge 
with two plank houses at opposite Angles," — a statement 



134 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

which determines beyond a doubt the position of the fort 
inside the village of Kaskaskia, and is besides good evidence 
that there was no other fort about. 

Having then secured a farm-house and its people, and 
made a levy on the farmer's boats, Clark soon crossed the 
river with his little army, found the village unsuspicious of his 
arrival and hence utterly unprepared for resistance. Clark 
divided his men into two bands, — with one he surrounded 
the village ; with the other attacked and captured the fort 
and got possession of the governor, a certain Frenchman 
in the English service, by name Rocheblave. In fifteen 
minutes the fort was secured and runners sent through the 
town warning the people to keep within doors on " pane " 
of death. Before daylight the town was disarmed and the 
people thoroughly convinced that they were helpless in the 
power of an enemy that was likely to lead them to execution 
on the dawning morrow. Their terror was increased by a 
clever trick of Clark, who ordered his men to howl through 
the now deserted streets as if they were wild savages. This 
was only a ruse, for in truth the American conqueror had no 
more relish for the shedding of their blood than had the poor 
Frenchmen themselves. His advantage lay in attaching 
these people to himself and to the American cause. 

In the morning a delegation of old men, headed by the 
parish priest, waited upon Clark and asked permission to hold 
one more service in their little church. The request was 
granted, and the people turned out to a service that must 
have seemed almost like a requiem Mass, so certain were 
they of the cruelty of their new master and of their own 
swift destruction. 

Clark finally called the principal men of the town to meet 
him. ''They came in," he says, "as if to a tribunal that 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. I 35 

was to determine their fate forever, cursing their fortune that 
they were not apprised of us time enough to have defended 
themselves." Clark explained that the expedition was an 
attempt to bring the country under American control, and so 
to protect the innocent inhabitants from slaughter by the 
savages under British domination. He said that would they 
give assurance of their allegiance to the American cause, 
they should immediately enjoy all the privileges of American 
citizens. '' No sooner had they heard this than joy sparkled 
in their eyes, and they fell into transports of joy that really 
surprised me, — they should be happy of an opportunity to 
convince me of their zeal, think themselves the happiest 
people in the world if they were united to the Americans." 

Thus by this zeal, and that of a brave man and skilful 
leader, was the American flag raised in an enemy's territory 
without the shedding of blood ; again the people went up to 
the house of the Lord, now to celebrate a festival of joy. 
This was the first time that the American flag had been raised 
in what is now the State of Illinois. From that day to this 
the national emblem has floated over this fair State ; God 
grant it may never be lowered. The reason for Clark's easy 
victory is not far to seek. At best the attachment of the 
French habitants to ruling England was slight, a matter of 
circumstance, not of principle or feeling. It was, therefore, 
an easy matter to convince the simple villagers that their 
real interests lay with America rather than England. The 
strongest argument that could be found was at hand. Across 
the ocean that country to which these people were united 
by the strong ties of kinship, customs, and religion had just 
concluded a treaty of closest friendship with the struggling 
nation whose servant Clark had the honor to be. The 
diplomatic Clark did not fail to urge upon the villagers the 



136 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

action of France as good reason why they should close at 
once with tlie friendly offers of the American people. 

Kaskaskia was the French capital of this region, and its 
most important town. It was a good base of operations for 
Clark's further work. From Kaskaskia to Cahokia, or, as 
Clark calls it, " Cohos," was an easy step. Major Bowman 
and a party of men mounted on horses that must have been 
furnished by the villagers, — since Clark brought none with 
him, — set out for Cahokia. Several Frenchmen were of the 
number, and these upon entering the town called out to the 
people " to submit to their happier fate ; which they did 
with very little hesitation." In a few days all the inhabitants 
in the vicinity had taken the prescribed oath of allegiance, 
and " seemed to be very happy," Clark adds ; correspondence 
of a friendly nature was begun with the Spanish governor at 
St. Louis, and all things bid fair for a continued success in 
the prosecution of his great plans. From an unusual source, 
aid came to Clark. To the village priest, Pere Gibault, is 
largely due the credit for the next victory achieved. Clark 
was in no condition to make an advance on Vincennes, or 
Post St. Vincent, as he calls it ; but Vincennes must be cap- 
tured. The priest, willing to save the lives of his spiritual 
flock, and evidently not unwilling to assist in the good work 
of releasing these people from British control, offered to go 
to Vincennes and gain his friends there to the American 
cause. Clark was quick to take advantage of favoring for- 
tune, and he gladly accepted the proffered assistance of this 
man who, he says, " gave me to understand, that although 
he had nothing to do with temporal business, he would 
give them such hints in the spiritual way, that would be very 
conducive to the business." After a few weeks the priest 
returned, having accomplished his errand and made the 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. I 37 

Americans masters of another important town and its sur- 
rounding territory. In praising Clark we should not forget 
that to a priest of the Mother Church the United States 
is largely indebted for its possession of the Northwest 
Territory. 

Clark was now master of an immense territory ; already, at 
the age of twenty-seven, he had displayed the sagacity of a 
veteran general, and had won a stupendous military advantage 
without the loss of a single life. 

A new difficulty now presented itself to our indomitable 
hero : the time of service of many of his men had expired, 
and they wished to return home. He succeeded in re-en- 
listing about one hundred of them, and to avoid the appear- 
ance of helplessness, he gave orders to the rest to go back to 
Virginia as a guard to his chief prisoner, Governor Roche- 
blave, who in contrast to the people whom he was sent to 
govern, refused to acknowledge or to treat with the Americans. 
** At the urgent request " of the French, Clark remained with 
the four companies whose quota of men was soon filled by 
the French volunteers. Clark's position seemed almost des- 
perate ; separated by a great distance from the possibility of 
military succor, a wilderness behind him, furious savages all 
about him, with the frail support of one hundred American 
soldiers and a like number of French volunteers, and the 
weaker aid of a timid and ignorant French population, he 
never faltered, but laid his plans for a council of Indians and 
for an attack upon Detroit. 

The policy of the British had been to stir up the Indians 
to cruelty against the " Rebels." In a letter to General 
Haldimand, written soon after the capture of Kaskaskia and 
Cahokia, Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton says that, by smooth 
speeches and presents of rum, the Delawares, Ottawas, 



138 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

Illinois, and others had been urged to strike at the American 
posts on the Kentucky. At a council held eight days later, 
of which a full account is given, the savages swore their aid 
against Clark and his followers. In a letter written by Major 
Bowman to Colonel Hite, July 30, 1778, instructions from 
Quebec and Detroit are quoted urging Rocheblave to use 
every effort to set the Indians upon the whites, and thirty 
days after the fall of Kaskaskia a plaintive appeal goes up 
from Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton to General Carleton for 
means, to support the Wabash Indians, " who," as he said, 
" are the only barrier at present against the inroads of the 
Rebels." No man recognized more clearly than Clark the 
need of securing the friendly alliance of the Indians, and 
none had more cleverness in treating with them. Therefore, 
while the Indians were not yet recovered from their aston- 
ishment at his sudden appearance and success, Clark called 
them to a council at Cahokia. With some of his forces at 
Vincennes under Captain Helm, with others at Kaskaskia, 
and a few near him at Cahokia under Major Bowman, this 
brave man, knowing it must be weeks, possibly months, be- 
fore aid could come from Virginia, sat down to meet the 
representatives of a dozen Indian tribes. The Kaskaskias, 
Peorians, and Michigans immediately asked for peace. The 
treaty was made after a speech which Clark says had greater 
effect than he could have imagined, and did more service 
than a regiment of men. From all the region the Indians 
flocked to Cahokia. One tribe attempted foul play, but 
were so thoroughly frightened at the quick knowledge of 
their design and speedy arrest of their purpose, that on their 
knees the proud Red Men begged the pale face's pardon, and 
promised friendship. It is a dramatic picture, one slight, 
boyish man, backed by a handful of his own sort, facing fear- 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. I 39 

lessly the savage bands, exposing with unsparing tongue the 
treachery of those who had attempted his murder, holding 
up before them the bloody war belt and the belt of peace, 
offering the choice to all the tribes except to the one he had 
found false, daring them to take the war belt, and even when 
they chose the belt of peace delaying the making of treaty 
till it should suit his supreme pleasure. Peace was Clark's 
only salvation, he could not have fought a week against the 
overwhelming number of savages ; yet so cleverly did he 
manage the negotiations that they sought peace, and humbly 
submitted to a man who apparently preferred to fight them. 
They were petitioners, he the benign master ; they the con- 
quered, he the conqueror. How did this young man have 
such wisdom ? Like Washington, bom a Virginian and trained 
a surveyor, his youth was familiar with the study of human 
nature, as illustrated in a developing country. As com- 
mander of a company in Dunsmore's War, he had led the 
right wing in the advance against the savages, and had there 
become familiar with their mode of warfare and their char- 
acter. From this he had turned to hfe on the Kentucky 
frontier, where the events of every day tended to sharpen his 
wits, to make him prudent, cautious, and self-controlled. In 
such a school, aided by fearless courage, extraordinary 
sagacity, was Clark fitted to meet and master the Indians of 
the Mississippi Valley. In five weeks he had made peace 
with ten or twelve tribes and, "much fatigued," returned 
to Kaskaskia, leaving Bowman in command at Cahokia. 
Though weary, Clark had no rest. In a short time he had 
disciplined his troops (including the raw French recruits who, 
as I have said, had volunteered their services) , kept spies at 
Detroit, sent off a party to capture Ouatinon, — now Lafay- 
ette, — secured this post together with forty prisoners and 



140 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

some stores, and so had gained complete control of the 
Wabash River. 

Meanwhile the English, who writhed under the continued 
success of a handful of backwoodsmen and were chagrined 
at the loss of four important posts, were not idle. Urged on 
by the Quebec authorities, and by his keen sense of disgrace 
at so easily letting slip the control of the Mississippi and 
Wabash Valleys, Governor Hamilton, soon as word came to 
Detroit of the British losses, took steps toward the recovery 
of the lost ground. In much haste a large force was 
equipped for an expedition against Clark. Everything ex- 
cept the weakness of Detroit seemed to favor the British. 
Detroit was almost defenceless in case of attack. From a 
letter written shortly after Hamilton's departure we learn 
that there was a population of 2144, of whom only 564 were 
able-bodied men, — a small military force, — and the com- 
plaint was often made that the people would not lend a hand. 
The allowance of flour was short, thirty thousand pounds, 
and the necessity of help so great that " unless it is sent the 
consequence may be fatal." Barring this danger, Hamilton 
spoke with reasonable ground for his courage when he wrote, 
three days before setting out : " The Spaniards are feeble 
and hated by the French ; the French are fickle and have 
no men of capacity to advise or lead them ; the Rebels are 
enterprising but want resources ; and the Indians can have . 
their resources but from the English, if we act without loss 
of time in this favorable juncture." The expedition, number- 
ing four hundred whites and Indians, begun under auspices 
apparently so favorable, and with so much hope on the part 
of the leader, had an ignominious end. Reaching Vin- 
cennes after a hard journey they demanded its surrender. 
** On what terms? " asked the valiant commander, standing 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 141 

with a lighted fuse by the breech of the loaded cannon. 
" You shall have the honors of war," was the reply. The 
fort surrendered, and Captain Helm and his garrison of one 
soldier marched out in possession of their arms and their 
colors flying. And this was all. While Clark was absent in 
Cahokia an English force was sent to Kaskaskia to recon- 
noitre, and to capture Clark if possible. He hurried back to 
his post, decided to burn a part of the town near the fort, 
and so defend the people there through a siege which he 
anticipated would last four or five weeks. His position was 
desperate, he says. When the people saw the town burning 
and their supplies in danger of destruction, they quickly 
brought them to the fort, and soon it was stocked with pro- 
visions ample for six months. Spies sent out by Clark 
brought back word that the attacking party had been fright- 
ened away and had gone home empty handed. The Ameri- 
can flag was still unfurled over the little picketed enclosure 
near the Jesuits' college. 

Pleased by this, Clark was yet more encouraged by the 
news brought from Vincennes by Colonel Francis Vigo, a 
Spanish merchant who was friendly to the American cause. 
Colonel Vigo had been to Vincennes, possibly sent as a spy 
by Clark, and while there was arrested by the British com- 
mandant. He was, however, released on condition that he 
would '' do nothing injurious to British interests on his way 
to St. Louis." This promise he kept, but on reaching St. 
Louis he immediately re-embarked for Kaskaskia, lent Clark, 
so it is said on rather doubtful authority, twelve thousand 
dollars, a large sum for those days, and gave him information 
concerning Hamilton's position. Hamilton's force had been 
greatly reduced by sending out exploring and marauding 
parties, and they were entirely careless of danger, thinking it 



142 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

impossible that they should be attacked in mid-winter. Un- 
less prompt action should be taken, the Illinois country- 
would soon be again under English rule. Clark must either 
take Hamilton, or be taken by him. Therefore, Clark 
resolved upon an undertaking which was more hazardous 
and difficult than the first attack on Kaskaskia. He decided, 
notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, to attack 
Hamilton at once. A boat was sent around by the water 
way. This carried, besides provisions, two four-pounders, 
four swivel guns, and a small company of men under Lieu- 
tenant Rogers. The next morning, having received absolu- 
tion from the priest, who accompanied them to the edge of 
the town and gave them a parting blessing, four companies, 
two of volunteers, and two of American troops, numbering 
barely two hundred, set out for a march of two hundred and 
forty miles across a roadless prairie, made nearly impassable 
by swollen rivers. Three days were occupied in crossing the 
Little Wabash. For five miles, in the stormy February 
weather, they were obliged to walk in water three feet deep. 
'* This would have been enough to have stopped any set of 
men that was not in the same temper that we were," says 
the commander. In the evening of the 17th of February 
they halted ten miles from Vincennes, — ten miles, nearly 
every foot of which was under water. They encamped on 
a little rise of ground, with water all around. The agony of 
the days from the i8th to the 24th cannot be told here. 
Four men sent out to steal boats lay all night in the water, 
clinging to logs to keep themselves from drowning. The 
18th and the 19th no provisions, and the boat with supplies 
not yet in sight. On the 20th a deer was shot and furnished, 
— what a repast for two hundred men. On the 21st it 
rained all day ; the water was getting higher and still nothing 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



143 



to eat. For a league they marched through water up to the 
neck. The next day, the 23d, the weak ones were pushed 
along in canoes, while those stronger marched on in the 
water. That night they spent in a sugar camp, and then 
marched on through a plain four miles wide covered with 
water. There was no way but this, and when the men 
looked across the four miles of dreary wading, they were 
almost ready to give up and go back. But Clark placed his 
little drummer on the shoulders of a stalwart sergeant and 
sword in hand stepped first into the water ; by his side was 
the sergeant bearing the drummer boy. Animated by such 
courage the men with cheers followed at the word, and 
pushing aside the floating ice came at last to a little hill near 
the town. Here they halted about noon, took captive a 
duck hunter, and sent by him word to the townspeople 
warning them to keep within their houses. Here is the 
letter sent by a starving man to the town he hopes to 
capture : — 

To the Inhabitants of Post St. Vincents : 

Gentlemen, — Being now within two miles of your village 
with my army, determined to take your Fort this night, and not 
being willing to supprise you, I take this method to request 
such of you as are true citizens and willing to enjoy the liberty 
I bring you, to remain still in your houses. And those, if any 
there be, that are friends to the king will instantly prepare to 
leave the post and join the hair-buyer General and fight like 
men. And if any such as do not go to the Fort shall be dis- 
covered afterward, they may depend on severe punishment. 
On the contrary, those that are true friends of liberty may 
depend on being well treated, and I once more request them to 
keep out of the streets ; for every one I find in arms on my 
arrival I shall treat as an enemy. 

[Signed] Geo. R. Clark. 



144 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

At sundown he marched on the town. The British were 
taken completely by surprise ; for no sane man could suppose 
that a force had marched through the water from Kaskaskia. 
So incredulous were the occupants of the fort, that even 
after firing began they thought for a time that it was the 
work of drunken Indians. But they were no drunken sav- 
ages that had taken possession of the town, surrounded the 
fort, thrown up an intrenchment, used houses for barricades, 
captured a band of troops returning from a reconnoisance, 
and now kept up a constant fire throughout the night, 
wounding inany in the fort but losing not a single man. At 
eight o'clock on the morning of the 24th, Clark sent forward 
a flag of truce with a proposition to General Hamilton for 
surrender; firing ceased, and while negotiations were in 
progress the unflinching heroes got their breakfast, — the 
first full meal in six days. After some correspondence, in 
the last of which Hamilton sneeringly said that he and his 
garrison were not disposed to be awed into an action un- 
worthy of British subjects, the battle began again. Even 
British regulars and their savage allies were no match for 
backwoodsmen who could walk in water for six days without 
their rations, and soon another flag of truce appeared from 
the fort, and a request was made for a three days' cessation 
of hostilities. Clark's answer deserves a place beside that 
of Grant to General Buckner in Fort Donelson : " Colonel 
Clark's compliments to General Hamilton, and begs to in- 
form him that he will not agree to any other terms than that 
of Mr. Hamilton's surrendering himself and garrison pris- 
oners at discretion." The fort was surrendered uncondi- 
tionally, and all the occupants became prisoners of war. 
Hamilton spent the night following in the arrangement of his 
papers, " while," as he says, " mortification, disappointment, 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



145 



and indignation had their turn." Clark and his men spent 
the night in rest. Well deserved it was. After twenty days 
of toil, bitter chilling water below and falling from above, 
hunger, and discouragement, they could rest happy in the 
sense of duty well performed, and victory grandly won. At 
ten o'clock Hamilton and his men marched out of the fort. 
Clark and his band marched in, and again the American flag 
floated over the stronghold of the Wabash, and an American 
force once more held possession of the eastern half of the 
Mississippi Valley. 

Clark had no commission from Congress, but held one 
from the Commonwealth of Virginia. With rare determina- 
tion, and as rare military sagacity, he had boldly struck out 
into an unknown wilderness to take and hold for Virginia 
and the Union the fairest portion of our country. Virginia 
accepted the gift of her heroic son, and in October following 
the capture of Kaskaskia all the territory lying north and 
west of the Ohio River was made a county of the " Old 
Dominion," under the name of Illinois. Thus made a part 
of the State, it was freed from the English yoke, and freed 
from the danger of Spanish possession. 

When Vincennes was captured, the way lay open to De- 
troit. Hamilton had left Detroit with equipment that was 
generous for those days. Ten bateaux laden with supplies 
for the British and Indians, while coming down the Wabash 
River, were captured by a party of men whom Clark had sent 
from Vincennes for that purpose. All eyes looked toward 
Detroit. The British there felt the danger. Lenault, the 
commandant, although he had 17,520 gallons of rum to 
help keep the Indians friendly, — the usual amount was ten 
thousand per year, — still wrote to his superior ofiRcer : "This 
most unlucky shake, with the approach of so large a body of 



146 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

Virginians advancing toward St. Duskie, has greatly damped 
the ardour of Indians." He complained that the Canadians 
were rebels almost to a man, and the town ill-prepared for 
an assault. The anticipated assault never came. Clark 
waited for reinforcements from Kentucky under Major — 
now Colonel — Bowman, which were to meet him at Vm- 
cennes on the 20th of June. In May, Colonel Montgomery 
arrived at Kaskaskia with less than half the number of men 
promised. Notwithstanding his disappointment and morti- 
fication, Clark decided to go back to Vincennes and wait 
there till the time agreed for further troops, and then march 
upon Detroit. Reinforcements did not come, and from 
month to month the advance on Detroit was postponed. 
Clark chafed under this policy. Three years before, Con- 
gress had advised the capture of Detroit ; Washington had 
carefully considered it and believed it a possible and advan- 
tageous move, and had twice advised immediate action. A 
Virginian had captured the Illinois, and Virginia, proudly 
announcing this fact to Congress, urged pushing on to De- 
troit. Governor Henry, in his letter to Congress, dated 
November 14, 1778, said: "Colonel Clark's success has 
equalled the most sanguine expectations ; he has not only 
reduced Fort Chartres and its dependencies, but has struck 
such a terror into the Indian tribes between the settlements 
and the lakes that no less than five of them have bound 
themselves by treaties and promises to be peaceful in the 
future." This letter closes with the recommendation noted 
above. 

Now, in 1779, with Clark master of the "Illinois," it 
seemed that the time was ripe. Clark himself was eager to 
set the crown upon his work by the seizure of the city be- 
tween two lakes. With consummate skill he won to his side 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



147 



SO many of the Indian tribes that he had a clear passage-way 
through friendly nations from Vincennes to Detroit. Un- 
aided by the general government or by the state troops, 
however, he could not begin so important and hazardous an 
undertaking. Detroit, therefore, remained British not only 
until the end of the war, but until fourteen years after the 
war had closed, when England reluctantly withdrew her 
troops. Clark sorrowfully cries, " Detroit lost for a few 
hundred men ! " Had he won Detroit he would have con- 
quered and held the whole Northwest. Unable to attack 
Detroit, he left the British free to push their forces down to 
the Ohio River and so continually harass the American 
settlers. The chief of several similar expeditions occurred 
in 1780, under Captain Bird, who left Detroit in May with 
one hundred and fifty whites and one thousand Indians. 
They were hardly successful. Only two small towns were 
ravaged, and the attacking party straggled back to the Cana- 
dian town on the lake. Clark's swift vengeance upon their 
Indian allies brought peace and quiet during the next year 
to the white settlers. Just after the successful retaliation, 
Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia, again urged upon 
Washington the importance of helping Clark advance upon 
Detroit. Finally, upon December 29, 17S0, orders were 
issued by Washington to General Brodhead, the commander 
at Port Pitt, directing him to equip Clark with men and 
supplies, and send him to Detroit. But Clark, weary at the 
long delay, had already gone to protect his own state against 
the English invasions, and the opportunity was lost. 

Here Clark sinks from notice. The remaining story of his 
life is told in few words. He built on the Mississippi River a 
fort known as Fort Jefferson ; he fought under Baron Steu- 
ben against Benedict Arnold ; he led the expedition against 



148 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

the Indian towns on the Miami and Scioto, where, in 1 782, the 
Red Men were so thoroughly frightened that never again did 
they attack the Kentucky settlements ; he accepted, at the 
hands of the notorious French Minister Genet, a commission 
as general in the army of France, and acting on strength of 
this, organized a force to march against the Spanish posses- 
sions on the lower Mississippi. The terrors of the French 
Revolution made conquest in the New World impossible, 
and the expedition never set forth. Clark's glorious military 
career was thus ingloriously terminated at the age of twenty- 
nine. His services were recognized by Virginia in a gift of 
land and the founding of a town which took his name. 

But once again does our hero come into public notice. 
The Commonwealth of Virginia sent him, at the hands of a 
committee, a sword as a token of her appreciation of his 
military service. Clark had bitterly felt his poverty and 
obscurity, which was due, he thought, to the ingratitude of 
the state. When the speech of presentation was ended, 
Clark received the sword and exclaimed : " When Virginia 
needed a sword I gave her one. She sends me now a toy. 
I want bread." In scorn he broke the handsome gift and 
dismissed the committee. He died at Louisville, and there 
he is buried. 

His life is of interest because of one great deed. In some 
ways an ordinary man, untaught, unlettered, evidently on 
his own showing brutal at times, careless of truth, egotistical 
and domineering, he had a noble purpose, heroism, unflinch- 
ing courage, a military spirit that made him quick to see an 
enemy's weakness and quick to take advantage thereof; 
above all, a comprehension of the nation's possibilities in 
material growth and territorial expansion that allies him with 
the true statesman, and a patriotism so enthusiastic and 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 1 49 

effective that it ennobles him in the mind of every American. 
It is well to turn back across the century that has passed 
over these fertile and now populous prairies, and consider 
the trial and danger, the sacrifice and hardship, the heroism 
and devotion, that were the price of our rich heritage, that 
always were and always will be the price of liberty. 

By the shrewd and daring spirit of one man, the five great 
Northwestern States were saved to American progressive 
spirit ; by the far-seeing wisdom of another, nine years later, 
that territory won by heroic service was dedicated and for- 
ever set apart to the God-given doctrines of freedom and 
the brotherhood of man. Rarely do such stupendous re- 
sults hang upon the deeds of one or two. In the eternal 
providence of God it was given to a Kentucky frontiersman 
to enlarge the bounds of a struggling people, and so extend 
the influence of Puritan Plymouth to the Father of Waters 
and the Golden Gate, and in a nobler day set this nation 
" enthroned between her subject seas." 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

F7'om a Synopsis of a Paper on " Reading of Young People^'' 
read by Mr, Ray before the Hyde Park Lyceum, in the 
wi?iter of i2>2>']-2>%. 

" T F a course of fiction is recommended to A., who is a 

X hard-headed despiser of everything that is n't practical 
and materia], it does n't follow that the same advice should 
be given to B., who is a sentimental, romantic, sesthetic 
maiden of eighteen to twenty summers." 

" By a strange mental paradox the boy reaching manhood 
outgrows the penny whistle and toy balloon, but does not 
always outgrow a foolish enjoyment in books that are below 
him and which minister only to his lower, perhaps even his 
baser, nature. He dwarfs his intellectual growth who reads 
down, not up." 

" Amusement is necessary but not all-satisfying ; informa- 
tion is useful only to that mind that is capable of applying it 
to the highest needs of its daily life ; the real purpose of 
reading is the training and culture of the mind. Mere 
scholarship is useless, and a dreary thing." 

" We find our real possessions not in broad acres and 
corner lots, but in thoughts and feelings of which no adverse 
fortune can deprive us, whose value no prosperity can greatly 
enhance or calamity depreciate." 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. I5I 

" Shakspeare's Shylock is much more real to me than the 
Jew Spinoza. Dickens's sweet and strong Agnes has influ- 
enced my Hfe more than any woman of history, and George 
Eh'ot's selfish and pleasure-loving Tito Melema is of more 
vital interest to me than any one of the Medici with whom 
Tito is made contemporary." 

"The influx of current literature endangers purposeful 
reading. Every morning twenty to forty columns of closely 
printed reading matter is hurled at my front door, and to 
many the temptation is by no means small to make the read- 
ing of the daily paper take the place of all other literary 
occupation." 

" We read more than our fathers, but I don't think we are 
much wiser. We read more and think less." 

" Hasty reading means for most of us careless reading, 
and I cannot agree with even so eminent an authority as Mr. 
Lowell in thinking that any reading is better than none. 
Reading is useless unless it begets thought. After one 
has read a book or a chapter, nothing will more surely fix 
it in his mind than to put into a few simple statements 
the leading ideas of his author. The reading of hours may 
often be condensed into half a dozen easily remembered 
propositions." 

" Read with reverence and love. This is quite possible if 
we read only what is best." 

"The worship of books that was so often seen among 
scholars before the days of printing, had some reason in it, 
and our boasted progress has left behind one good, in making 
books so common that they attract no particular attention 
from most folk. The fathers communed with noble souls. 
We, in our careless reading, are more like serving-maids 
who chatter with the milk-man at the curb and the cook 



152 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

in the kitchen, but are awed into a stupid silence in the 
presence of the master-spirit." 

" Books begin to be of the greatest service to us when we 
have re-read them a few times." 

" All books must be put in two classes, good and bad ; 
there is no middle ground. The surest test of the goodness 
or badness of a book is in ourselves, — the feeling with which 
we leave it. If it has made us less religious, less sympa- 
thetic, less fond of simplicity, less humble, less contented 
with the lot which Providence has given us ; if it has weak- 
ened our faith in God and man, made us sneering and cyni- 
cal \ if it has excited unclean thoughts, — the book is bad. 
If it has made us less selfish and less conceited, more child- 
like in faith, more God-like in action, more willing to work 
and fonder of honest fun ; if it has given us high purpose of 
living and thinking, — it is good and safe. If it does n't do 
all this, keep away from it." 

From a Paper on " How shall our Academies and Seminaries 
be Strengthened 1 " 

" Civilization and culture are not the same things, however 
constantly and persistently they are confounded. To civi- 
lization belong the railroads, the telegraphs, the printing- 
press, the loom, the industrial arts. To culture belong the 
inner life of men, the soul, the divine. Ours is an age of 
civilization, not of culture." 

" The dignity of labor is not in kind, mental or manual, 
but in spirit." 

" If we would train our pupils to do the best work, whether 
in the quiet seclusion of the library or the busy highways of 
the world, we must impress upon them the spirit of moral 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 



153 



integrity, of Christ-like manhood and womanhood, of loving 
sacrifice." 

" It is as truly the duty of the school to develope the heart 
and the conscience as the brain." 

" All external appliances and internal methods fall flat 
without the teacher's aid and direct agency. To us belongs 
the work, upon us devolves the duty of strengthening the 
schools in our charge, whether it be in the university or the 
primary department." 

" It is too much to expect of us that we be possessed of 
ever ready tact, of endless patience, of the wisdom of the 
ages ; but it is not too much to demand untiring zeal, fresh 
enthusiasm, undaunted perseverance, thorough scholarship, 
broad culture, moral purity, Christian consecration. If we 
murmur, there come to us the words of the great Indian 
teacher Guatama, — 

** * What good gift have my brothers, but it came 
From search and strife and loving sacrifice ? ' " 



OUTLINE 

PREPARED FOR USE IN A CLASS-TALK ON 
"HOW TO STUDY." 

I. How TO Study. 
A. Objectively. 

I. What are you to leam? State your subject definitely 
to your mind. 

(a) A lesson is to be learned in literature. For instance, 
the meaning of a term is not known. Go to the dictionary, 
make it your own, apply it by illustration, etc. 

(d) Or the facts about a certain event are required. Go 
to the history, look at the index, — no good book without an 
index now-a-days. 

(<r) A lesson in science. Look at the facts ; test each 
by your personal experience. What conclusions are to be 
drawn from each? Can you see them? 

One reason why you don't learn things better is a lack of 
purpose, or not knowing what. 

(d) In Latin or Greek. 

The thought, what is the author talking about? Can you 
thmk what he is likely to say? Where is the subject and 
predicate ? Is a noun in the genitive case the subject? 
Have you seen the word before ? Does it suggest anything 
to your mind ? 

B. Subjectively. 

The aim of education is two-fold, — discipline and knowl- 
edge. Discipline should accomplish powers of concentra- 
tion, perception, reasoning, and retention. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 1 55 

Knowledge though small must be exact. The world has 
no place for guessers. (A man tells me a story of a visit to 
a California ranch, 1200-3200 sheep, etc.) 

1. Concentration absolutely necessary. (Two monks 
and the Lord's Prayer. "Pater noster, qui es in ccelus, 
sanctificatur nomen tuum.") Nothing you can get out 
of school will be half so much help to you. Great men 
have it. (Archimedes at the capture of Syracuse. Sir 
Isaac Newton — patient work — Horace Greeley.) It is 
the only power that makes things go, and brings about 
results. 

To study a minute, then look at somebody, go to the 
library, now to the reference table, is absolutely ruinous. If 
you can't get power from school life, you might as well quit. 
To acquire this, — 

{a) Exercise the will. 

{f) Be methodical as to subject, time, and place. 

{c) Be independent. 

(Betsy Bobbitt and the clinging kind.) 

2. Learn to see differences. (The claws of a cat. How 
does a horse get up and he down ? A cow ? ) 

Mistakes in translation : second person, singular, future, in- 
dicative, active, and second person singular, present, subjunc- 
tive active of third conjugation may change a whole sentence. 
Most of your mistakes are of this sort, a lack of precision. 
It 's pretty nearly hopeless for a boy who gets up in class 
and stumbles round in English, and finally sits down saying, 
" I know, but can't tell it," to see the beauty and precision 
of an inflected language that expresses nearly all relations 
and ideas by the change of a letter or syllable at the end of 
a word. (Thing, of Uppingham, tells the story of Turner 
throwing pebbles into the water all day.) 



156 APPENDIX: SELECTED WRITINGS. 

Perception of the ear as well as the eye. Why don't you 
know whether a question is correctly answered, when you 
could have answered it yourself? For the same reason that 
twenty-five people get on the wrong train at Randolph or 
Van Buren Street stations though the train men, with voices 
loud enough to wake the seven sleepers, tell people that this 
train goes to Kensington. 

3. Reasoning. 

To go from the known to the unknown. What an idiotic 
thing to guess at answers about which you really know some- 
thing or nothing. If you are to explore new fields, you 
would prefer not to be tumbled into them from a balloon, 
but come up from land you know, so that you might cover 
your retreat in case of defeat. (A. Lincoln and geometry.) 
To concentrate, to sharpen all the wits, to use all the God- 
given powers, would make lesson-getting a pleasure. 

2. How TO Read. 

To read for a subject, which is much of the reading you 
do in school : — 

First, find where it is talked about, look down your page, 
discard everything at a glance of the eye which has no 
bearing on your subject. You can easily learn to read by 
sentences, or at least by phrases. You will quickly scent out 
what belongs to you. Then take your facts by groups. In 
biography this is easy ; in the record of an event not always 
so easy. What, where, when, why, results. A phenomenon 
in science — what is it ? What follows ? 

Then go over it and put it in your note-book. The man 
without a note-book is lost in a wilderness. The man with 
a note-book is lost too, unless he takes good care of it. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 1 57 

Ninety-nine one-hundredths of the books printed are not 
for you and me. A few pages may be for our help. Read 
these and let the rest go. 

3. How TO Remember. 

1. Attend. Put all the power of your mind into what you 
wish to retain. 

This must be {a) Involuntary — interest. 

{b) Voluntary — strong exercise of the will. 

2. Repeat over and over again until habit comes. 

3. Association — Philosophical memory worth more than 
circumstantial. Event with event ; phenomenon with phe- 
nomenon. (Example of Edward Everett.) 

4. Use your knowledge to the utmost every day. Employ 
all that has gone before. 

(The illustration of the Mississippi River ; the boat, the 
bank, the light of stars, the company, the toiling up the 
river, the setting moon, the rising sun.) 

Man's sun sets not. Work the secret of success. 



THE END. 



f* LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 139 974 2 






